6 healthcare tech trends for 2026

1. AI aids diagnosis

AI is a hot topic and may have already played a role in your preventive care. In fact, some Medtronic pulse oximeters — a diagnostic device often clipped to the finger — have long used AI to improve accuracy in measuring blood oxygen saturation.

What’s evolving is how doctors are using AI to see more, sooner. Now, it can detect heart disease and spot colon polyps in real time.

Take GI Genius™, an AI-assisted colonoscopy that gives doctors an extra set of eyes. Trained on millions of colonoscopy videos, it scans every visual frame to help reduce the chance of missed polyps by up to 50%.¹

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For aortic stenosis, a serious and often undertreated heart condition, early detection is critical. The symptoms are subtle, but AI can help doctors analyze medical data to find warning signs faster.

What's next: “AI will become more predictive and personalized,” said Dr. Austin Chiang, Chief Medical Officer of the Endoscopy Operating Unit at Medtronic. “Ultimately, the future will continue to combine AI insights with human judgment to deliver proactive, patient-centered care.”

2. Health tech to treat ‘the silent killer’

For decades, medication and lifestyle changes were the only ways to treat high blood pressure. That’s changing now that the Food and Drug Administration has approved renal denervation (RDN) to treat hypertension.

RDN is a technology-based therapy that, for some patients, can reduce their high blood pressure without the need for additional medication.²

Patients may also be attracted to RDN because it has an “always-on” effect that keeps working 24 hours a day, like a pill you don’t need to remember to take.^2-3 Some patients need less medication afterward,³ and fewer medications may mean fewer side effects.

What’s next: “Doctors are increasingly more comfortable recommending a device approach to patients to complement medication and lifestyle changes, especially when procedures like RDN are proven safe and effective,”^2-5 said Jason Fontana, Vice President and General Manager for the Coronary and Renal Denervation Operating Unit at Medtronic.

Adverse events of RDN therapy include, but are not limited to, pain and bruising. Results may vary.

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3. Speedier recoveries — thanks to a robot assist

Surgery once required large incisions and long recoveries. Healthcare technology and minimally invasive surgery have come a long way since then.

Surgeons are mastering newer techniques, including robotic-assisted surgery and interactive simulations, to become more precise. Robotic systems support minimally invasive surgeries, which can lead to fewer complications, shorter hospital stays, and faster recoveries.^6-8

When James Choate-Deeds was diagnosed with prostate cancer at 57, he explored treatments and learned he needed a prostatectomy, a surgery to remove the prostate.

Then he discovered the Medtronic Hugo™ robotic-assisted surgery system, which recently earned FDA clearance for urologic surgical procedures in the United States last year.

“The procedure and recovery felt easy,” said Choate-Deeds. Today, he’s back to hiking, snow skiing, playing hockey, and traveling.

What’s next: By combining robotics with AI, the future of surgery could be even less invasive and more predictable. “Someday, I could have real-time access during surgery to a 3D model of the organ I’m operating on,” said Dr. James Porter, the urologic surgeon who performed Choate-Deeds’ surgery and Chief Medical Officer for Robotic Surgical Technologies and Digital Technologies at Medtronic.

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4. Personalizing care with digital twins

You’re one of a kind. But someday, you could have a digital twin — a virtual version of you that helps clinicians personalize care and predict health outcomes. How? By combining clinical, physiological, and lifestyle data, a digital twin can mirror the unique characteristics of individual patients.

While a comprehensive human digital twin hasn’t been created yet, patients are already beginning to benefit from this technology. Doctors can now “rehearse” a heart valve replacement using a digital replica of the patient’s heart, predicting how the body may respond to the procedure.

Medtronic is also exploring how digital twins could help develop safe therapies faster. “A digital twin can help us accelerate research, reduce the need for animal testing, and avoid exposing humans to unnecessary risks,” said Dr. Nathalie Virag, Vice President and General Manager at the Medtronic Bakken Research Center. “Many early-stage experiments can be conducted on a computer before moving to animal or human testing.”

What’s next: Digital twins will become smarter and help clinicians move from reacting to patient health challenges to predicting individual health risks before symptoms appear.

5. Keeping health tech safe from hackers

As healthcare technology becomes more connected and data-driven, it creates opportunities to improve care. But that progress raises an important question: How is patient safety and sensitive information protected in health tech?

Medtronic prioritizes patient safety through a security-by-design approach. That means we start assessing potential security vulnerabilities of a device from the design stage and onwards, throughout development.

We also attend DEFCON, the world’s largest hacker conference, to get inside the minds of hackers and challenge them to break into our medical devices. During DEFCON 2025, we learned from more than 200 hackers to make Medtronic devices safer before they reach patients.

What’s next: “Healthcare is trending toward more interconnected technology, and there’s a demand for data to predict outcomes,” said Nancy Brainerd, Senior Engineering Director, Product Security Office at Medtronic. “This should lead to giving patients more control and visibility to their care.”

6. Using AI to answer health questions

You’ve likely asked “Dr. Google” medical questions. But how we find answers is changing. More people are using generative AI to learn about their health concerns, turning to AI overviews and chatbots before seeing a doctor.

While AI can offer quick, personalized answers, it should be used as a tool for learning rather than diagnosing. This is especially true for health conditions like heart disease, which can present differently in women than in men.

“AI can be a great starting point, but it should never replace a conversation with a healthcare professional,” said Dr. Kendra Grubb, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Structural Heart at Medtronic. “It doesn’t understand your lifestyle, family history, or clinical signs the way a physician does.”

What’s next: AI could become more connected to wearable devices. By tracking real-time health data like heart rate and blood pressure, AI-assisted wearables could help identify early warning signs before symptoms start. This could empower patients to seek care sooner and give clinicians insights to personalize treatment.

1. Wallace MB, Sharma P, Bhandari P, et al. Impact of artificial intelligence on miss rate of colorectal neoplasia. Gastroenterology. 2022;163(1):295-304.e5.   
2. Böhm M, Kario K, Kandzari DE, et al. Efficacy of catheter-based renal denervation in the absence of antihypertensive medications (SPYRAL HTN-OFF MED Pivotal): a multicentre, randomised, sham-controlled trial. Lancet. 2020;395(10234):1444–1451. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30554-7.
3. Kandzari D, Townsend R, Kario K, et al. Safety and efficacy of renal denervation in patients taking antihypertensive medications. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2023;82(19):1809–1823. doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2023.08.045.
4. Mahfoud F, Schlaich M, Schmieder RE, et al. Long-term outcomes in ESC guideline-recommended patients for RDN from Global SYMPLICITY Registry DEFINE. Presented at: EuroPCR 2025; May 20–23, 2025; Paris, France.
5. Mahfoud F, Kandzari DE, Kario K, et al. Long-term efficacy and safety of renal denervation in the presence of antihypertensive drugs (SPYRAL HTN-ON MED): a randomised, sham-controlled trial. Lancet. 2022;399(10234):1401–1410. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(22)00455-X.
6. Fitch K, Engel T, Bochner A. Cost differences between open and minimally invasive surgery. Managed Care. 2015;24(9):40–48.
7. Tiwari MM, Reynoso JF, High R, Tsang AW, Oleynikov D. Safety, efficacy, and cost effectiveness of common laparoscopic procedures. Surg Endosc. 2011;25(4):1127-1135.
8. Roumm AR, Pizzi L, Goldfarb NI, Cohn H. Minimally invasive: minimally reimbursed? An examination of six laparoscopic surgical procedures. Surg Innov. 2005;12(3):261–287.