As 2025 winds down, we’re reflecting on the articles that connected most with our readers. This year’s coverage spanned everything from healthcare policy to the data behind provider networks, but a few pieces rose to the top as the most-read content of the year.
Health system rankings drew heavy engagement, giving leaders a clear picture of scale, market influence, and where care is concentrated. Technology remained top of mind as well, from EHR adoption to lessons learned from cybersecurity breaches.
Insights into hospital economics helped readers understand the financial pressures shaping the industry, and policy shifts rounded out the conversation, signaling how the business of healthcare could evolve in 2026.
Here’s a look at some of our highest-performing articles of 2025, along with a short recap of why each earned a spot.
Most common hospital EHR systems by market share
This analysis continues to dominate readership for a reason: EHR market share highlights the technology powering hospital operations across the country. In 2025, readers gravitated to this breakdown to track vendor consolidation, understand who’s gaining or losing ground, and benchmark their own tech stacks against national trends. It remained a high-value pulse check on the digital backbone of U.S. hospitals.
What are the largest U.S. hospitals by bed count?
Hospital scale matters, and this ranking delivered a snapshot of where the country’s highest-capacity facilities sit. This ranking serves as a starting point for understanding which hospitals anchor care delivery and where patient volume is most concentrated. Organizations often turn to hospital rankings to spot the biggest clinical and commercial opportunities in the acute care market.
Top 10 largest health systems in the U.S.
Across the U.S., healthcare markets are increasingly dominated by a few large players. This list serves as a quick litmus test for influence and reach in a market defined by consolidation, ranking leading health systems by number of hospitals, staffed beds, and net patient revenue (NPR).
Vendors often use these metrics to determine where to market products or services, while strategy teams rely on them to evaluate market power and partnership potential. Life sciences companies also look to these rankings to understand system influence, align market access strategies, and identify where clinical adoption might scale fastest.
How to find and win healthcare requests for proposals (RFPs)
For vendors trying to win business in a procurement-heavy industry, this how-to gives them a fast, practical crash course on healthcare RFPs. It breaks down the mechanics of a strong RFP response, from the components that matter to how to stand out, while explaining where to find the right bids and how to read what buyers are truly asking for. The result is a practical framework teams can use to simplify a complex process and craft proposals that rise to the top of crowded evaluations.
Top 25 largest academic medical centers
Academic medical centers (AMCs) underpin much of the country’s innovation ecosystem, while also shaping the next generation of physicians and delivering some of the most complex patient care. This ranking, based on the number of residents and interns, highlights which institutions are leading in clinical education and physician workforce development. In 2025, readers turned to it to track institutional leadership in discovery-heavy fields, see where talent pipelines originate, and understand the AMCs driving high-acuity care forward.
U.S. hospital revenue and expense trends
As financial pressures on providers continued through 2025, this analysis offered a clear view of the factors shaping hospital performance. By breaking down trends in net patient revenue (NPR) and operating expenses (OPEX), it highlights where margins are under pressure and how financial performance varies by market and system scale. Healthcare leaders rely on hospital financial data for budget planning and strategic forecasting.
Largest nonprofit hospital systems
Of the more than 900 healthcare systems in the U.S., over three-quarters are nonprofits, giving them outsized influence over care delivery. This hospital system ranking, based on the number of beds, provides a clear view of where that influence is concentrated. In 2025, readers relied on it to track system scale and understand which nonprofit providers shape local healthcare markets.
Cybersecurity breaches emphasize the importance of secure tech in healthcare
Cybersecurity remained front and center in 2025 as high-profile breaches exposed vulnerabilities across hospitals and provider networks. These incidents underscored that secure, reliable technology is no longer just a tech concern; it’s a matter of patient safety. Readers turned to this coverage not only to understand the evolving data security crisis but also for guidance on protecting patient data and safeguarding operations. The story reinforced a critical takeaway for the year: hospitals and vendors must stay ahead of cybersecurity threats or risk both financial and reputational fallout.
Healthcare policy shifts will reshape the business of care in 2026
The U.S. healthcare system is no stranger to policy disruption, but 2025 may have been its most consequential year since the Affordable Care Act (ACA). While the full effects of recent federal actions won’t hit until 2026 and beyond, this year was all about understanding what’s ahead and how it could shape strategic decisions for healthcare providers, payers, manufacturers, and innovators.
Readers valued its forward-looking perspective, relying on these insights to plan for market shifts before the new funding and regulatory environments fully take hold. The big takeaway: policy touches every corner of healthcare, from who gets care and how it’s delivered, to how providers get reimbursed and which innovations reach the market. In the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) era, policy awareness and proactive planning are non-negotiable for healthcare leaders.
Get the data behind the insights
If this year’s most-read content tells us anything, it’s that leaders are hungry for clarity in a complex industry. From system scale to hospital economics to the technology reshaping care, these topics show where decision-makers are seeking answers—and data is key to getting there. Get the trusted data behind these insights. Book a demo of Definitive Healthcare.
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