News & Insights
Reports, briefings, and field notes from the NHIT Health Innovation Impact Tour. For press, reach the communications team directly.
Featured report · July 2026
Mid-year findings from the NHIT Health Innovation Impact Tour. Drawn from convenings on Capitol Hill, in Baltimore, and in Puerto Rico — with over 100 participating organizations across healthcare, academia, technology, philanthropy, community-based organizations, and government.
All events reached the same conclusion: health transformation will not succeed if community trust, workforce, AI, policy, broadband connectivity, data and capital efforts remain in separate silos.
Baltimore named trust the prerequisite for every other priority. Puerto Rico called it “the invisible infrastructure.” No tool, portal, or pilot works without it.
National goal: Establish Community Trust Frameworks with genuine community decision rights in every federally supported health innovation initiative.
Clinicians, public health workers, community health workers, promotores, and navigators must be recruited, trained in AI literacy, and retained as one ecosystem, or every other strategy stalls.
National goal: Secure federal, public, private, and philanthropic commitments to train, hire, and retain AI-enabled community health workers across the U.S. and its territories.
Internet connectivity is a super-determinant of health. Broadband access determines whether telehealth, AI, and remote monitoring reach patients.
National goal: Advance policies, funding, and cross-sector collaborations advancing universal digital health access for every community.
Communities must become, and be treated as, data partners — trusted stewards of their own health information, guiding community data commons and public health intelligence systems.
National goal: Develop a National Community Data Commons framework supporting local ownership, transparency, and interoperability.
AI models trained on urban, mainland, non-diverse data may not perform for rural, underrepresented, and U.S. territory populations. Deployed carelessly, AI can deepen the very disparities we seek to close.
National goal: Every AI solution deployed should meet standards for transparency, fairness, representative data, community governance, and measurable impact.
Communities were clear: they intend to participate as builders in the AI economy — with local IP protected and homegrown startups retained locally.
National goal: Create pathways for underserved communities to drive regional economic development as producers, innovators, and owners in the AI economy.
Executive reports & field notes
Executive Report
Full readout from the July 21 Legislative Summit in the Mikulski Room: congressional remarks, keynote by Quita Highsmith (Genentech), and panel outcomes on trust, workforce, and scaling community innovation.
July 2026
Executive Report
Convened with the Puerto Rico Science, Technology & Research Trust. Four-pillar framework for community-led health innovation on the Island — carried directly into the Legislative Summit agenda.
June 2026
Action Report
Six linked strategies for Baltimore's post-moratorium window: trust, multi-layer workforce, diversified funding, data-center accountability, a ground-truth data portal, and CHW-centered health innovation.
May 2026
Executive Report
Framing the Rural Health Transformation Program and the broadband, workforce, and coverage gaps it leaves unaddressed. Convened at the Cannon House Office Building with congressional partners.
May 2026
Press Release
Announcement of the NHIT–PRST strategic partnership summit — advancing the September 2024 joint commitment to drive economic development in Puerto Rico through community-led health innovation.
June 2026
Blog
Field notes on trust as the foundation, workers as the backbone, and community data stewardship — drawn from Capitol Hill, Baltimore, and San Juan.
July 2026