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I have been building things long enough to know that the best way to validate whether you are on the right track is to watch how the world responds to the problems you are trying to solve. When 10,500 nurses walked off the job in New York City — and stayed off for five weeks in the middle of winter — I paid close attention. Not as a competitor watching a market move. As someone who has spent a lot of time sitting across from healthcare workers, administrators, and safety lead

What This Week's News Confirms Each week, Kim and I spend time together reviewing the articles posted by the OPTICS team in the OPTICS Newsroom ( www.OPTICSHC.com/news ). This week we came away with a renewed sense of urgency and confirmation that we're building exactly what healthcare organizations need right now. The trends are unmistakable: workplace violence in healthcare isn't just persisting, it's escalating. But here's what gives us confidence: OPTICS was designed from

What 15,000 Striking Workers Tell Us About Healthcare's Breaking Point and the Need for Collaboration As nearly 15,000 nurses enter their third week on strike at three of New York City's premier hospital systems, a critical question emerges: Are their demands unreasonable, or are they simply asking for what nurses nationwide desperately need? The answer reveals an uncomfortable truth for everyone involved. The National Context The NYC nurses aren't outliers—they're the visibl

A Step Forward for Healthcare Safety When New York announced its new workplace violence prevention requirements for hospitals and nursing homes in December, we were not surprised. What New York is requiring by September 2027 outlines what healthcare organizations will need to implement: a structured, systematic approach to preventing workplace violence. The timing is significant. Healthcare workplace violence has increased dramatically, with some facilities experiencing 60% i

Many healthcare leaders may not realize that the anxiety their patients feel about not knowing  what's happening, might be driving them toward violence. New research published in the Journal of Emergency Nursing  in 2025 examined 315 emergency department patients and found that "intolerance of uncertainty" is a major predictor of violence tendency. What's Intolerance of Uncertainty? Think about what it’s like to be a patient in an Emergency Department (ED). You are in pain. Y

As Director of Operations for OPTICS for Healthcare, I spend a lot of time thinking about our AI-native platform and its Agentic AI components. I work with an incredible team of people, including the OPTICS Advisory Board , who are all invested in making the future of healthcare better for the healthcare professionals on the front line and the executives who manage the bottom line. As a team, we believe that it is possible for AI to predict the future in healthcare, at least

When I think about transformative leaders in healthcare technology, one name stands above the rest: Judy Faulkner, founder and CEO of Epic Systems. In 1979, Faulkner started coding in her Wisconsin basement with $70,000 borrowed from friends and family, a single minicomputer the size of a washer-dryer, and two part-time assistants. She wrote the original code herself. Today, Epic maintains the medical records of over 325 million patients—more than half the U.S. population—and

Healthcare organizations spend millions promoting their organizations' value proposition to consumers. But when it comes to delivering what patients actually want—happiness, peace of mind, and improved quality of life—which organization asset matters most? Take the Quiz Question: What is a healthcare organization's most important asset when it comes to delivering what patients and consumers value the most? A) Advanced technology and medical equipment The latest MRI machines,

(Part 1) Healthcare organizations face a crisis that's quietly eroding their bottom line while threatening the industry's future: workplace violence. According to a recent World Health Organization report, an estimated 38% of healthcare workers will suffer physical violence at some point in their careers—violence perpetrated primarily by patients and visitors. Yet the true scope of this epidemic remains hidden, as research cited by WHO suggests that fewer than half of all inc

How Political Violence Threatens Healthcare Workplace Safety The recent assassinations of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, and United Healthcare’s CEO Brian Thompson, have reignited discussions about politically charged violence in America, but healthcare organizations and security professionals face a unique challenge: understanding how this broader political volatility can infiltrate their work environments. As political polarization reaches new extremes, healthcare workpl

A Healthcare Workplace Violence Case Study* Background A mid-sized behavioral healthcare facility in the U.S. found itself facing...

Healthcare Employment and the Churn Factor The recent headlines about healthcare's hiring slowdown tell only half the story. While...

Workplace violence in healthcare costs $18.27 billion annually, according to recent research by the American Hospital Association, but...

Healthcare organizations across the United States are bracing for a significant regulatory shift as federal and state governments...

In healthcare settings where violence against staff occurs at alarming rates, the speed at which organizations assess facility operations...

What’s top-of-mind for America’s healthcare CEOs? In an effort to answer that question, we analyzed several annual surveys from...