2026 Chief Financial Officer Priorities Snapshot
Drawing on insights from The Academy’s latest CXO Priorities Survey, this report reveals how leading financial executives are navigating margin pressure, workforce cost volatility, and capital constraints—while positioning their organizations for sustainable growth. Explore where CFO priorities align with peers, where they diverge, and what these signals mean for the future of financial leadership in U.S. health systems.
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Key Takeaways
Patient access comes first —AI and automation to make it achievable. Improving patient access ranks as CFOs’ top priority, with AI strategy and workflow automation close behind. Together, this signals that CFOs see technology as a lever to expand capacity and move more patients through the system without proportional workforce growth
The biggest improvement opportunities reflect an urgency to expand revenue streams. The areas where CFOs cited the most room for improvement (direct-to-employer partnerships, outsourcing/offshoring) ranked relatively low as current strategic priorities. In a time when margin and policy pressure is squeezing the bottom line that gap is telling: CFOs are drawn to initiatives that could expand revenue streams, even if execution is not yet widespread.
Automation is widely viewed as high-value — but execution remains unclear. CFOs rate automation as both highly important and a major opportunity to improve, signaling strong belief in its ROI. At the same time, many are still working through how to move from concept to action, making automation more of a recognized opportunity than an established playbook today.