Executive attention was trained on growth in 2025—creating growth strategies, developing integrated care models, and building the leadership team to make them a reality. And that is reflected in the OPEN MINDS summit and seminar sessions that executives watched in 2025.

But making growth strategies happen requires leadership resolve in a very turbulent market landscape. A recent survey of health system leaders—2026 Global Health Care Outlook—found that 20% of U.S. leaders have a negative view of the year ahead, and 33% are uncertain. (This is a notable increase from the 3% who were uncertain about the future of the health care market in the year ahead.)

The less-than-positive views of health care leaders were reportedly due to federal regulatory changes, drug pricing issues,…