Tampa General Hospital CMO Offers Healthcare Predictions for 2026
By Christopher Cheney
For 2026, the top clinical officer at Tampa General Hospital foresees healthcare trends in care delivery, complexity of patients, AI tool adoption, and financial pressures.
Peggy Duggan, MD, is executive vice president, chief physician executive, and CMO of Tampa General Hospital. Her prior experience includes serving as CMO of Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital.
Prediction 1: Expansion of ambulatory care
The trend of care shifting from the inpatient setting to the ambulatory setting will continue and accelerate in 2026, according to Duggan.
“We will be doing more complex work outside of the hospital,” Duggan says. “At our academic medical center, we are near full capacity, but there is an opportunity to move patients out of the inpatient setting while still providing great services to our patients and community.”
Tampa General Hospital has been looking at emergency department utilization and patient admissions that are less than two days for diagnoses trends and opportunities to move care to ambulatory clinics.
“These diagnoses include congestive heart failure and mild cellulitis,” Duggan says. “These conditions require urgent care and consistent access to care, but they often can be addressed in an ambulatory setting.”
Prediction 2: Hospital at Home will remain an option for acute care
In 2026, health systems and hospitals will continue to seize on the opportunity to provide acute care for patients through Hospital at Home programs, according to Duggan.
“We have patients who require acute care, but sometimes we can provide that care in their homes,” Duggan says. “We have physicians and advanced practice providers who can go to the home or conduct telehealth visits at any time of the day. We also have nurses who can visit the home to make sure patients have what they need.”
Tampa General Hospital’s TGH at Home program provides a range of acute care services in the home setting, including medications and blood transfusions. The TGH at Home program works closely with the organization’s service lines, and it has driven positive clinical and operational outcomes such as reduced hospital length of stay.
“For example, we have transplant patients who have been able to go home at least a week early after their transplant surgery but still need acute-care services,” Duggan says.
Despite uncertainty about the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services waiver for Hospital at Home programs, Duggan believes CMS support will continue.
“The waiver has been extended [to Jan. 31, 2026],” Duggan says. “We are convinced that Hospital at Home has shown great value and it will continue to be supported by CMS. I am convinced that it is here to stay.”
Prediction 3: Complexity of hospital-based care
Duggan expects the complexity of care in the hospital setting to increase in 2026.
“Coordination of care across service lines and across medical conditions is going to be key because patients are living longer and developing more complexity with multiple conditions,” Duggan says. “This population of complex patients is going to continue to increase, and we need to use our resources in the most efficient and effective way to support these patients. We need to make sure these patients have everything they need.”
With the patient population aging and dealing with multiple chronic conditions, hospital care teams are going to get more complicated, according to Duggan.
“There are more providers involved in the care who are experts in several areas of care,” Duggan says. “This means that the coordination between care team members needs to be tighter because you want to make sure that treatment for one condition does not have a negative impact on another condition.”
Prediction 4: Adoption of AI tools
The pace of AI adoption in healthcare will quicken in 2026, according to Duggan.
“Two years ago, Tampa General Hospital had a handful of AI tools,” Duggan says. “We now have more than 50 AI tools that are helping us to drive improvements. AI tool adoption will pick up over the next year in areas such as driving quality, helping us address challenges around billing and denials, and simplifying case reviews and case studies. AI is providing a tidal wave of opportunities.”
“There is some risk involved in every AI tool you use,” Duggan says. “You need to have tight control over what is coming into your facility, the safety of AI tools, where you are using AI tools, and checking their performance. You need to have a human in the loop to validate what an AI tool is doing.”
Prediction 5: Rising to financial challenges
Health systems and hospitals will continue to face financial headwinds in 2026, according to Duggan.
“We must be prepared for financial uncertainty,” Duggan says. “Fiscal responsibility has never been more important in healthcare. All health systems will be focused on finance over the next year or two because of the uncertainty.”
Financial pressures will push many health systems to become larger next year to capitalize on economies of scale, Duggan explains.
“Health systems will get larger because many small health systems will not be able to maintain their financial sustainability,” Duggan says.
Clinical leaders have an important role to play in ensuring that their organizations remain financially viable, according to Duggan.
“A health system’s chief physician executive or CMO has a duty to help maintain the organization’s financial sustainability,” Duggan says. “For example, when you can reduce variability in care delivery, you can save money while generating better clinical outcomes.”
Christopher Cheney is the CMO editor at HealthLeaders.