Inside ViVE 2026: UPMC Enterprises Experts on Clinical Trials, Real World Data, and EHR Maturity

UPMC Enterprises proudly participated at ViVE 2026, held in Los Angeles, CA, Feb. 22-25. The conference, which attracts an audience of senior executives from health systems, payers, venture capital, life sciences and health technology, featured three speakers from UPMC and UPMC Enterprises, as well as participation from several of our portfolio companies.

Below are key highlights from those speaking sessions.

“Clinical Trials Without the Wait, Waste & Wonder” — Insights from David Okonkwo, MD, PhD

David Okonkwo, MD, PhD, professor of neurological surgery at the University of Pittsburgh and executive vice president of UPMC Enterprises, spoke on the “Clinical Trials Without the Wait, Waste & Wonder” panel, emphasizing how clinical trials are central to UPMC’s mission of delivering Life Changing Medicine.

To support this, Dr. Okonkwo mentioned how UPMC has invested significantly in infrastructure, automation, and partnerships designed to accelerate trial efficiency while also working to strengthen relationships with biopharma, med‑tech, and AI innovators.

“We’ve spent a lot of time and energy and contributed resources to building infrastructure that allows us to create automation, but also sets a template for finding the most effective partners,” he said.

A major pillar of this approach is UPMC Enterprises’ real world data platform, Ahavi, and the supportive role it plays in shaping clinical trials. Dr. Okonkwo highlighted how Ahavi allows UPMC to identify eligible patients, identify the clinicians who see those patients most frequently, and help trial sponsors better understand the requirements of launching a specific study.

Dr. Okonkwo also discussed a newly released report from the Center for Connected Medicine at UPMC, “Understanding the Barriers to Women’s Participation in Clinical Trials,” which examines the key barriers that continue to limit women’s enrollment in clinical trials. The report’s findings aligned closely with themes raised during the panel, where Dr. Okonkwo emphasized opportunities to reduce barriers through smarter trial design and physicians serving as advocates of the trials.

“The number one driver is the trust that that patient has in her physician — it’s still rooted in that doctor-patient relationship,” he said. 

Ultimately for Dr. Okonkwo, technology’s role is not to replace clinicians but to help them deliver more effective, innovative care. 

“It’s just going to get easier for physicians and surgeons to come into work every day and leverage technology to ensure they are matching the best possible care with every patient,” he said. “And that includes identifying and offering clinical trials that will take our patients to the next level.”

“When AI Goes Live: Governance Benchmarks for the Real World” – Andrew Adrian‑Karlin Joins DiMe for a Candid Conversation on Governance

Andrew Adrian-Karlin, director, Technology Services Pipeline Development, UPMC Enterprises, joined Jennifer Goldsack, CEO of Digital Medicine Society (DiMe), for a Partner Program Fireside to discuss governance benchmarks for AI. 

The discussion highlighted UPMC’s unified philosophy for AI across both care delivery and payer operations, grounded in patient safety, trust, and measurable improvements in access, quality, and cost. Andrew emphasized three core principles: assessing risk based on context, maintaining human oversight, and ensuring clinicians remain the primary decisionmakers, with AI serving as a supportive tool. 

He also underscored how UPMC Enterprises’ real‑world data platform, Ahavi, brings this philosophy to life by giving partners a secure, compliant, scalable environment to develop, test, and validate AI models using high‑quality clinical data and rigorous evaluation workflows. This disciplined approach has enabled effective collaborations with innovators like Penguin Ai, which uses Ahavi to train and validate generative AI models aimed at reducing administrative burden in health care. 

Andrew closed by noting that UPMC’s governance framework keeps AI grounded in human expertise, clinical context, and an unwavering commitment to patient safety.

“EHR Maturity Moment” — UPMC’s Chief Medical Information Officer Highlights the Evolution of Records

Reflecting on nearly three decades in the field, including eight years as chief medical information officer at UPMC, Rob Bart, MD, described how electronic health records have evolved and where he believes they are headed next.

He emphasized that while EHRs have matured as systems of record, a new transformation is underway. “I think they’re transitioning now into becoming systems of intelligence. And from that perspective, they’re somewhere in their infancy. I think the transition, though, from record to infant to intelligence, is going to be much more rapid than actually getting to that unified record that has taken multiple decades to get to,” he said.

Dr. Bart spoke to his experience integrating data across multiple platforms at UPMC and made it clear that technical data exchange alone does not solve the practical realities clinicians face. Workflow, he argued, is the true barrier to progress.

He also expressed how governance of AI must expand beyond data science, as effective oversight requires strong data architecture as well as input from clinicians, ethicists, and quality experts. “When you’re thinking about incorporating artificial intelligence and governing it, I think equitable use across all populations is something you have to really strive for. If you do it well, artificial intelligence can actually help us distribute health in a much more equitable manner than was ever possible previously. But you have to do it well,” he said

He concluded with a forward-looking approach to patient-centered care, highlighting how better communication tools such as ambient listening technologies can meaningfully enhance engagement. “Patients show so much more cognition about the care being delivered and so much more involvement with just the simple use of a technology that unlocks better communication,” he said.

Where Innovation Meets Impact: Portfolio Presence at ViVE

UPMC Enterprises portfolio companies had a strong presence at ViVE this year, with several portfolio companies sponsoring the event including Abridge, Clearsense, Parachute Health, and Percipio Health, with Abridge also participating in three panel presentations. Shivdev Rao, MD, UPMC cardiologist and CEO & Co-founder of Abridge, spoke on “Not Another One-Trick Pony: What It Takes to Build Enduring AI in Healthcare.” Mike Tiemeyer, CISO, Butterfly Network, was also featured on a panel titled “Beyond HIPAA: Developing a Comprehensive Compliance Strategy.”

Other UPMC Enterprises portfolio companies including Redesign Health and Koda Health also attended the conference, contributing to the collaborative community of innovators advancing the future of health care.

Next Steps

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Note: UPMC has a financial interest in Abridge, Butterfly Network, Clearsense, Koda Health, Parachute Health, Penguin Ai, Percipio Health, and Redesign Health.