The NCHID Summit 2025: From Best Practices to Next Practices

Written By: Kailey Cornelison

NCHID Digital Health Summit brings together an international audience of leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs across various healthcare and life sciences fields to explore how stakeholders can promote collaborative frameworks, community activation, and trust-bearing systems of healthcare innovation. The summit aims to translate visionary concepts into real-world situations to create a more sustainable change in the health of the population.

Across the state of North Carolina there exists communities of health innovators working

diligently on transformative projects. These groups have long been siloed in their efforts,

prompting the need for a space to collaborate with peers in the field, catalyzing ideas and new opportunities. The North Carolina Health Innovation District (NCHID) Summit took place this past month in Charlotte, NC and served this exact purpose.

The NC Digital Health Landscape

The NC health innovation landscape encompasses healthcare providers, digital health

startups, research teams, hubs of innovation and other centers of excellence. These diverse

stakeholders are committed to advancing medicine and healthcare—not just within the state, but nationally and globally.. In an increasingly technological world, many initiatives are beginning to target digital health platforms and the disparities in access to them within our state. Leaders like Ethan Than, MBA, a speaker at the NCHID Summit, work to bridge the gaps in health innovation by negotiating research collaboration and license agreements.

NCHID Summit 2025

The North Carolina Health Innovation District is the statewide platform for collaboration

and its annual Summit is a flagship event. NCHID works locally to support unmet needs for

collaboration in a health landscape within the state and foster strong coalitions that reach far beyond the scale of North Carolina. The second annual Summit event brought together an international group of speakers and panelists who aim to empower fellow thought leaders, innovators and directors in the life sciences. This event demonstrates how community-driven efforts and trust-centered innovation can drive meaningful impact throughout the health ecosystem.

Bringing together international and local leaders allowed for an exchange of information

and resources that foster new opportunities to revolutionize healthcare. Designing a roadmap to success improves outcomes for leaders and those who benefit from these systems, all of us. In today’s world, we as patients can recognize the gap between our current era and the outdated healthcare systems that leave needs unmet and gaps in treatment across socioeconomic groups. This Summit and events similar create a ripple effect of positive impacts for leaders and participants in the healthcare industry.

Panel Highlight: Levering Data on the Edge

Taking time to acknowledge one stand out panel from the event, the “Levering Data on

the Edge” session is surely a front runner.Featuring Sheila Phicil, MPH, MS; Myla Maloney,

MBA; Lance Okeke, MD, MPH; and David Armstead, the session brought together a uniquely

qualified group—comprising a university professor and three CEOs and directors from leading healthcare organizations. They dove into the details of how establishing trust and engagement between innovators can unlock new data and insights. The panel spoke on how to use data driven platforms as empowering tools rather than ones that strike fear in the eyes of marginalized groups. Rather than allowing data platforms to intimidate or alienate marginalized communities, panelists emphasized using them as empowering tools. Healthcare providers play a crucial role in this process by contextualizing the value of data sharing—reminding patients that their contributions can lead to breakthroughs, such as AI-powered detection systems for diseases like breast cancer.

The NCHID Summit 2025 showcased the power of collaboration, trust, and innovation in

reshaping the future of healthcare. By uniting leaders across sectors and geographies, it sparked new ideas and partnerships that promise to drive meaningful, lasting change—both in North Carolina and beyond.

References:

1. Digital Health Institute for Transformation. Leveraging Data at the Edge. YouTube.

Published April 7, 2025. Accessed April 14, 2025.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gB-iqUciMg

2. Summit 2025 – NC Health Innovation District. Nchid.com. Published 2025. Accessed

April 14, 2025. https://nchid.com/summit-2025/

3. Tugman K. NCHID Summit 2025» Digital Health Institute for Transformation. Digital

Health Institute for Transformation. Published March 1