HSS was one of 18 organizations to make the list across nine sectors, joining organizations including New Balance, PwC, Morgan Stanley, Garmin, Adobe, and Cargill. Three healthcare organizations were included, with HSS the only hospital to be honored.

HSS was selected for its efforts to address workforce burnout through a comprehensive range of physical health resources, mental well-being support, and recovery-focused programs.

This achievement reflects the contributions of people across HSS who help create a healthier, more supportive workplace.

View the complete list here: https://www.fastcompany.com/91598529/the-corporate-wellness-innovators-2026

Pam comes to HSS from Main Line Health, where she has been Chief Human Resources Officer since 2021; she held that role previously at Saint Peter's Healthcare System and at Thomas Jefferson University and Hospitals. At Jefferson, she was the first functional leader hired to combine human resources across the university, the hospitals, and the physician practice plan. At Main Line, she built the organization's first comprehensive workforce strategic plan and helped that institution earn 'Great Place To Work' certification for five consecutive years.

HSS is excited to welcome Pam, who's expertise and leadership will help further our commitment to being the best place for all professionals in our field to advance their career and drive the future of musculoskeletal care.

The Hudson Yards location opened on July 13, expanding and relocating services from the former West Side-Sports Medicine Institute location. The Main Campus location opened on August 3. Together, they bring the HSS Ortho Now network to eight locations across the New York metropolitan area, including Main Campus on the Upper East Side, Midtown, Hudson Yards, Westport, Uniondale, White Plains, Stamford, and Paramus-Midland Ave, making it easier for patients to access specialized orthopedic care closer to home and work.

HSS Ortho Now provides patients ages 12 and older with immediate access to specialized orthopedic evaluation and treatment for musculoskeletal injuries and pain, with appointments often available within 72 hours. The service offers a convenient entry point into the HSS system, enabling patients to receive expert assessments by Advanced Practice Providers (APPs) who initiate an individualized treatment plan for patients. “Timely access to specialized orthopedic care is essential for patients experiencing a new injury or musculoskeletal pain, as it can significantly influence both the patient experience and clinical outcomes. The Ortho Now APPs and care team have established an efficient, high-quality model for delivering orthopedic care at HSS." said Stephanie Peralta, PA-C, MPAS, Clinical Director, Outpatient Clinical Programs at HSS. "With new Ortho Now locations at Main Campus and Hudson Yards, we're making it easier for patients to connect with expert orthopedic clinicians and begin the right care plan."

Through HSS Ortho Now, patients are evaluated by dedicated physician assistants and nurse practitioners specializing in orthopedic care. Providers assess symptoms and medical history, order X-rays or advanced imaging when clinically appropriate, establish a diagnosis and develop an individualized treatment plan. Following the visit, patients receive support from scheduling specialists and a dedicated team to help coordinate any necessary follow-up appointments.

HSS Ortho Now is an appointment-based service designed specifically for orthopedic injuries and pain. The program connects patients with clinicians who specialize in musculoskeletal conditions while providing seamless access to the broader network of HSS specialists, diagnostic imaging and rehabilitation services when additional care is needed.

Patients can schedule appointments online at hss.edu/now or by calling 833-477-7100. Visit the website for locations, hours and appointment availability.

U.S. News evaluated nearly 4,500 hospitals in 14 specialties. Hospital performance was assessed based on various measures, including patient outcomes, level of nursing care, patient-reported experience, and available technology such as computer-assisted orthopedic surgery. The methodology factored in data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, professional organizations, and medical specialists.

“We are proud to once again be recognized as a leader in orthopedics and rheumatology,” said HSS President and CEO Bryan T. Kelly, MD, MBA. “This distinction reflects the extraordinary expertise, dedication, and collaboration of the entire HSS team. For patients across the New York metropolitan region, it is also a powerful validation that the best orthopedic care in the country is available right here in their community. Through comprehensive musculoskeletal care, we help patients preserve mobility, enhance their quality of life, and extend their healthspan so they can continue doing what they need and love to do.”

“This recognition from U.S. News reflects HSS’s unwavering commitment to advancing musculoskeletal health through clinical excellence, innovation, and patient-centered care,” said Douglas E. Padgett, MD, surgeon-in-chief and medical director of HSS. “Perhaps the greatest measure of our impact is the trust of patients who travel to HSS from across the country and around the world seeking care have placed in us. This distinction reflects our dedication to achieving exceptional outcomes and our belief that preserving movement is the foundation of longevity and quality of life.”

Patients come to HSS from all 50 states and more than 100 countries, often for both common and complex medical conditions or challenging surgeries requiring highly specialized care. As a global destination for orthopedic and rheumatologic care, HSS brings together world-renowned physicians, advanced treatment approaches, and multidisciplinary teams dedicated to delivering personalized, evidence-based care for patients of all ages and activity levels.

“Our rankings reflect the extraordinary expertise, dedication, and innovation of the physicians, scientists, researchers, and care teams who make HSS a leader in rheumatology,” said Anca D. Askanase, MD, MPH, Chair of the Department of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Rheumatology at HSS. “Through groundbreaking research, advanced therapies, and highly personalized care, we are helping to transform the lives of patients living with complex autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.”

“The pace of discovery in musculoskeletal medicine is accelerating at an unprecedented rate,” said Joel Press, MD, Physiatrist-in-Chief at HSS. “Advances in artificial intelligence, data science, and precision medicine are helping researchers uncover new insights faster and translate those discoveries into more effective, personalized care. With HSS’s singular focus on musculoskeletal health and unmatched depth of clinical expertise, we are uniquely positioned to turn innovation into meaningful improvements in outcomes for patients everywhere.”

As the world’s leading academic medical center specializing in musculoskeletal health, HSS maintains among the lowest hospital readmission rates for orthopedics in the nation, and among the lowest rates for infection and complications. HSS is the worlds most awarded hospital in orthopedics by Newsweek each year since the “World’s Best Specialized Hospitals” survey was introduced in 2020.

In 2025, HSS clinicians and surgeons provided specialized care to more than 258,016 patients with orthopedic or rheumatologic conditions, such as pain or injury to the back, neck, or joints; osteoarthritis; rheumatoid arthritis; lupus; scleroderma; and psoriatic arthritis. HSS performed more than 45,864 orthopedic surgical procedures in 2025.

HSS is the official hospital of and provides team physicians to more than 25 high-performing sports teams and leagues, including the New York Giants, New York Knicks, New York Liberty, Brooklyn Nets, New York Mets, New York Red Bulls, TCS New York City Marathon, National Basketball Players Association, Major League Pickleball, US Youth Soccer, and UFC. It is designated a Medical Center of Excellence by Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).

Newsweek, in partnership with Statista, evaluated leading hospitals across seven care specialties: cancer, cardiac, endocrine, gastrointestinal, neurological, orthopedic and pulmonary. Rankings are based on a comprehensive methodology that includes a nationwide survey of medical professionals and hospital managers, patient experience data, patient-reported outcome measures, and specialty-specific safety and quality measures.

In another newly released Newsweek ranking, Lerner Children’s Pavilion at HSS was named among “America’s Best Children’s Hospitals” for pediatric orthopedics.

“When faced with a complex medical challenge, choosing the right hospital and specialist is one of the most important decisions patients and families can make,” said Bryan T. Kelly, MD, MBA, HSS president, CEO and surgeon-in-chief emeritus. “This recognition reflects the extraordinary expertise and dedication of our HSS colleagues, who are committed to delivering the highest standards of evidenced-based, compassionate patient care.”

“This honor underscores the clinical excellence and collaborative approach that define care at HSS,” said Douglas E. Padgett, MD, surgeon-in-chief at HSS. “Our teams are continually advancing innovation, elevating patient outcomes, and providing highly individualized, expert care to every patient we serve.”

HSS is consistently ranked as a top hospital for the diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal conditions by leading ratings organizations. Patients travel to HSS from all 50 states and more than 100 countries, often seeking care for complex cases and specialized surgical procedures. The institution’s ongoing dedication to research, quality improvement, and knowledge-sharing continues to position HSS as a thought leader in musculoskeletal health.

The Industry Awards recognize one standout organization from each sector: the company whose work best demonstrates how data intelligence can drive breakthrough results, reshape operations and create new possibilities within their field. From a global bank unifying risk and finance data across regions to a hospital transforming how clinical data is ingested and reused, this year's winners show just how broad and deep that impact can be.

This year's program recognizes 10 winners spanning financial services, communications, health and life sciences, manufacturing, retail and CPG, energy and utilities, enterprise technology, public sector, digital-native businesses and excellence in cybersecurity. Together, they represent some of the most inventive and impactful uses of Databricks we've seen — and we're thrilled to celebrate each of them.

Without further ado, meet the 2026 Databricks Customer Awards Industry winners.

Financial Services Industry Award: Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation

SMBC Group is a top-tier global financial group. Headquartered in Tokyo and with a 400-year history, SMBC Group offers a diverse range of financial services, including banking, leasing, securities, credit cards and consumer finance. The bank is using data and AI to integrate risk, treasury and finance; harden cybersecurity; and modernize the digital experience for clients.

At the center of that transformation is a single Databricks lakehouse that brings SMBC's data together across regions — on one governed platform. Unity Catalog provides the bank with cross-region data sharing, lineage and access controls. Lakehouse runs analytics and AI at the scale a global bank requires, while holding the line on cost and complexity.

On that foundation, SMBC is using Genie and Agent Bricks to put trustworthy, data-driven intelligence directly in the hands of the business. The platform powers a chatbot for the Cash Management System, generates Early Warning Indicators for portfolio risk and is being extended into front-office credit memo workflows — turning analyst hours into minutes.

The results are measurable:

• Faster analytics and AI. Critical workloads — from reporting to risk signal generation — run on a consolidated, performance-tuned lakehouse instead of fragmented regional stacks.
• Lower run cost. Standardized data processing, centralized governance and active cost monitoring across dozens of production-serving endpoints keep spend predictable as usage grows.
• New revenue and risk levers. Credit memo automation, cash management self-service and Early Warning Indicators surface insight earlier.

These outcomes show how SMBC treats data as a strategic asset — operationalized every day across global teams to drive better, faster and more defensible decisions.

Communications, Media and Entertainment Industry Award: Lumen Technologies

Lumen Technologies is a digital networking services company that delivers the secure, high‑performance, intelligent connectivity enterprises require to achieve their AI ambitions. The company uses data and AI to give finance and operations teams faster, more consistent access to information.

In finance, Lumen brings together data from domains such as revenue, billing and network expense so teams can work from a shared view of the numbers. The company consolidates this data on the Databricks Platform. It introduces natural‑language agents that let employees ask questions in their daily tools and get governed, explainable answers without specialist skills.

On this foundation, Lumen:

• Improves visibility into revenue, billing and network expense.
• Extends agents to Enterprise Operations to inform contract discussions and vendor negotiations.

In Service Assurance, Lumen is making it easier to investigate and resolve network incidents that can affect critical customer workloads. A Lakehouse architecture, foundation models and multi-agent workflows provide a single conversational interface. In which teams can review service status and operational context, analyze tickets, review case history, run diagnostics and explore time to resolution in natural language. This approach is helping scale automation across service operations, with internal metrics showing 3 million+ AI-powered diagnostics, 35% ticket deflection and more than 100,000 AI-generated actions.

Health and Life Sciences Industry Award: Hospital for Special Surgery

Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) is the world’s leading academic medical center focused on musculoskeletal health. For 16 consecutive years, it has been ranked #1 in orthopedics in the U.S. by U.S. News & World Report — a distinction that reflects sustained excellence across clinical care, research and innovation.

Building on this foundation of leadership and impact, in June 2025, HSS launched an ambitious enterprise data transformation journey: to design and implement a modern data lakehouse on Databricks within an 18-month timeframe. The objective was not incremental improvement, but structural change, unifying a highly fragmented data ecosystem, strengthening governance at scale and enabling faster, more reliable decision-making across the enterprise.

Rather than following a traditional use case-driven data ingestion model, HSS adopted a fundamentally different strategy — full system ingestion. In practice, this required ingesting source systems in their entirety, rather than selectively extracting subsets of data tied to individual use cases. ERP, HRIS, EHR, PACS and other source systems were brought in as complete datasets, preserving fidelity, context and enabling reuse across multiple downstream applications without re-ingestion or re-engineering.

This approach introduced meaningful upfront complexity. Requiring deeper coordination with system owners, rigorous data modeling and stronger governance controls from day one. However, it established a scalable foundation. New analytics use cases can now be delivered rapidly without revisiting ingestion patterns or re-modeling data, significantly reducing time-to-insight and technical redundancy.

In just 10 months, HSS had ingested 40+ source systems, established 14,500+ production tables and 130+ schemas, and delivered a growing set of data products and applications.

More importantly, the transformation has shifted the operating model for how data is delivered across the enterprise. Teams can now move from question to insight using reliable, governed datasets, enabling not just faster delivery, but more sophisticated analytics, functionality and deeper insight generation. It is this step-change in both capability and execution that distinguishes this transformation and underpins the program's recognition as an industry-leading data initiative.

Manufacturing and Automotive Industry Award: TrinityRail

TrinityRail® is a North American railcar lessor, manufacturer and logistics provider that is adopting more digital services into its platform to enhance its suite of customer offerings. As part of its 2026 strategy, the company is focused on operationalizing intelligence, embedding data and implementing AI in its day-to-day decisions and workflows.

TrinityRail brings data together from legacy systems that previously limited visibility across manufacturing, leasing and services and made it harder to improve margins, working capital and workforce productivity. The company is re-platforming core business systems on the Databricks Platform and converging its data estate to support “Systems of Action” — moving from static dashboards to transactional applications and agents that act on insights in near real time.

On this foundation, TrinityRail:

• Unifies key manufacturing and supply chain processes into a “Joint Ops” ecosystem, with initiatives such as OneBOM and Lights-Out Procurement, to automate material planning and purchasing.
• Modernizes leasing systems with Lakebase as the transactional backbone, reducing latency and complexity in its Asset Management System.
• Launches agentic AI use cases, such as a Collections Control Tower and shop-floor assistants, to help automate finance and repair workflows.

Through the acquisition of RSI Logistics, TrinityRail also integrates telemetry data from railcar sensors to support data-as-a-service offerings for customers. Together, these efforts target measurable outcomes such as inventory reduction, procurement automation, per diem and supply chain savings and more responsive digital services across its fleet.

Retail and CPG Industry Award: PepsiCo

PepsiCo is a global food and beverage leader — and data powers its operations at scale. Partnering with Databricks, PepsiCo built its Enterprise Data Foundation (EDF) to enable every function across the company to build and scale data and AI products on a shared, modern, scalable and performant platform.

EDF unifies enterprise data and powers reusable data products used by supply chain, commercial, consumer, finance, procurement, R&D, HR and sustainability teams globally. The foundation supports priority business programs with strong operating metrics, including onboarding 85%+ of enterprise data, exceeding 90% data quality and catalog coverage, and delivering 200+ enterprise data and AI products to production.

On this Databricks foundation, PepsiCo has driven reporting and data simplification by 60% to date and plans to move to AI for BI consoles across lines of business and functions.

Built on Databricks, EDF is AI‑ready by design — supporting advanced analytics, machine learning and governed AI at scale. With embedded governance and semantic context, PepsiCo turns clean, connected data into insights and actions that drive real business impact across the enterprise.

Energy and Utilities Industry Award: Ausgrid

Ausgrid is a major electricity distributor in Australia serving homes and businesses across its network. The company is modernizing how it manages and uses data so a relatively small team can support analytics and AI across the enterprise.

Ausgrid brings data from parallel legacy analytics systems that increased platform costs and made it harder to deliver trusted, reusable data to business users. A lean eight‑person data team planned and executed a full migration from Azure Synapse to a lakehouse architecture on the Databricks Platform, decommissioning the old environment and standing up an Enterprise Data Platform with certified “gold” data products across domains such as customer, finance and weather. This work removes duplicate platform spend and reduces operational overhead from maintaining two analytics stacks.

On this foundation, Ausgrid:

• Introduces reusable, certified data products that reduce shadow data marts and ad‑hoc reporting.
• Launches Data Labs that provide governed, on‑demand workspaces for employees to explore data and build BI, analytics and AI solutions.
• Delivers training in data engineering and AI/BI to dozens of staff to support a broader self‑service model.

Looking ahead, Ausgrid focuses on scaling to an AI‑driven utility by releasing more domain‑aligned data products and enabling tools such as Databricks Lakehouse, Genie and apps for democratized analytics. The goal is to onboard thousands of employees onto a single lakehouse and use data and AI to support smarter decisions, modern BI and embedded use cases while improving total cost of ownership through consolidation and elastic compute.

Enterprise Technology Industry Award: Intel

Intel is a global technology company that designs and manufactures semiconductors and computing technologies powering devices, data centers and intelligent systems worldwide. The company is modernizing its data and AI foundation to improve collaboration, governance and speed of innovation across the organization.

As Intel’s data estate grew in scale and complexity, teams faced challenges with consistency, governance and fragmented workflows across business units. To address this, Intel IT aligned cross-functional teams around a unified data strategy and standardized analytics and ML consumption on the Databricks Platform, helping bring greater consistency and control across the enterprise.

On this foundation, Intel IT:

• Standardizes and curates data products on the Databricks Platform with consistent governance, lineage and role-based access controls.
• Enables cross-team collaboration by consolidating analytics and ML work into a shared workspace and reducing fragmentation across tools and pipelines.
• Accelerates delivery of analytics and AI use cases through reusable ingestion and transformation patterns, scalable compute and streamlined ML workflows.

Intel IT also strengthened its internal data community by aligning operations, analytics and governance teams around shared standards and operating models. This has helped improve data stewardship while making it easier for teams to discover, access and reuse data across the organization securely.

Together, these efforts have made Intel’s data ecosystem more connected, governed and scalable, supporting faster innovation and broader adoption of data and AI across the business.

Public Sector Industry Award: IDB Invest

IDB Invest is the private sector arm of the Inter-American Development Bank, financing companies and mobilizing private investment to advance development across Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2025, it reported a record $13.1 billion in total activity as it advanced a broader institutional transformation designed to increase scale, quality and development impact.

As IDB Invest’s efforts with Databricks have expanded, the organization has modernized how teams’ access and act on information across treasury, analytics and risk workflows. A core objective has been to reduce fragmentation in the analytical environment and establish a stronger foundation for faster, more consistent and more AI-enabled decision-making across the business.

This transformation includes applying AI-based document analysis to support the Risk and Sustainability Management team as deal flow grows and financial and non-financial risk reviews become more complex. Using natural language processing and large language models, IDB Invest can analyze and summarize investment proposals, aide-memoires and annual supervision reports while creating a centralized repository of institutional knowledge and key financial information for faster retrieval.

IDB Invest also implemented an enterprise-wide AI virtual assistant powered by Databricks Genie to provide conversational access to data and analytics. By combining Genie with governed access through Unity Catalog, the organization is giving users a secure way to query enterprise data, explore scenarios and generate summaries in natural language. This helps extend analytics beyond specialist teams and broadens access to AI-driven insights across treasury, risk and impact workflows. This further shortens time to insight, reduces reliance on manual reporting and accelerates adoption of AI across risk, treasury and development impact workflows.

Early outcomes from this work include:

• Improved performance and accuracy in treasury operations.
• A 60% reduction in manual workload.
• Special recognition from Treasury Management International for Best Treasury Tech Overhaul in 2026.

Together, these efforts show how IDB Invest is using data and AI to streamline operations, strengthen decision-making and support its broader growth and development mandate.

Digital Native Business Industry Award: Superhuman

Superhuman, the productivity platform that includes Grammarly, Coda, Superhuman Mail and Superhuman Go, serves over 40 million daily users across dozens of languages and relies on the Databricks Platform to deliver suggestions that are fast, reliable and cost-efficient at a global scale.

In close partnership with Databricks, Superhuman migrated a majority of the inference traffic powering Grammarly’s flagship grammatical error-correction model from a DIY vLLM stack to Databricks High Throughput Model Serving.

On this foundation, Superhuman:

• Handles peak traffic above 200,000 queries per second with sub-second P99 latency and four-nines reliability.
• Improves per-GPU throughput by roughly 60% through FP8 quantization, CPU-side runtime improvements and advanced load balancing.
• Maintains stable latency through large diurnal spikes using autoscaling, direct ingress and accelerated container startup.

Beyond inference, Superhuman has adopted Lakebase, Databricks’ fully managed PostgreSQL service natively integrated with the lakehouse, as a transactional backbone for internal applications and production services, syncing Delta tables into a low-latency store and writing application state back without custom pipelines. This Lakebase and Databricks Apps foundation has turned multi-month feature onboarding and reverse-ETL projects into work measured in weeks or even hours, while dramatically reducing on-call load for engineering teams.

Together, these investments demonstrate how a digital-native company like Superhuman can run high-volume LLM inference and data-driven applications side by side, tightly managing latency, reliability and cost at consumer scale.

Excellence in Cybersecurity Industry Award: Adobe

Adobe empowers everyone, everywhere to imagine, create and bring any digital experience to life. From creators and students to small businesses, global enterprises and nonprofit organizations, customers choose Adobe products to ideate, collaborate and be more productive, drive business growth and build remarkable experiences.

But in today’s digital world, trust is what makes bold ideas possible. Trust empowers creativity — and it starts with security, by protecting our customers and communities who use Adobe’s products every day.

As the volume and complexity of security data have grown, Adobe has continued to evolve its data-driven cybersecurity approach. Adobe’s security team leverages data and AI tooling, including Databricks, to help enable more scalable analysis and improve the speed and accuracy of threat detection.

By applying software engineering practices to its detection workflows, Adobe has strengthened the consistency, governance and efficiency of its security operations. The result has been a measurable reduction in false positives, faster detection development and improved analytical performance against large-scale data.

These efforts reinforce Adobe’s ability to identify and respond to ever-evolving threats — and underpin the secure, reliable digital experiences for Adobe customers worldwide.

Congratulations to all of our 2026 industry winners:

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Lumen Technologies, Hospital for Special Surgery, TrinityRail, PepsiCo, Ausgrid, Intel, IBD Invest, Superhuman and Adobe.

Ten winners. One throughline: organizations that saw what data and AI could do in their field and built something worth celebrating. Their work pushes the whole community forward — and that's exactly the point.

In this role, Dr. Williams, Chief of the HSS Sports Medicine Institute, Medical Director and Head Team Orthopedic Surgeon for the Brooklyn Nets, New York Liberty, and New York Red Bulls, will serve as the liaison between FIFA and local medical providers, coordinating 24-hour medical care for all athletes and FIFA officials competing at the New York New Jersey World Cup location. 

“The FIFA World Cup is the pinnacle of global sport, and it is a distinct honor to be appointed as VMO for some of the tournament’s most high-profile matches,” said Dr. Williams. “Ensuring the health and safety of athletes from around the world on this universal stage is a responsibility I take with the utmost seriousness, and I’m proud to represent HSS in partnership with FIFA to deliver world-class care to every player.” 

Dr. Williams spearheads the relationship between FIFA and HSS, building on the hospital’s distinction as one of only three hospitals in the United States designated as a FIFA Medical Centre of Excellence, an honor HSS has held since 2014 and continues to hold today. This recognition affirms FIFA’s acknowledgment of HSS as one of the premier institutions that has demonstrated a high level of expertise in soccer across medicine, education, and research, including the diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and rehabilitation of injuries that may arise while playing the sport. 

Dr. Williams specializes in knee, shoulder, and elbow surgery, with a focus on ACL and knee ligament repair and cartilage reconstruction following sports-related and orthopedic injuries. He serves as Chief of the Sports Medicine Institute at HSS, where he leads a multidisciplinary team of more than 60 clinicians across HSS locations in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and South Florida. 

This announcement reinforces both organizations’ commitment to advancing athlete health and performance while aligning with FIFA’s medical mission to improve player health globally by setting standards in clinical care and governance, building a worldwide soccer medicine community, conducting and facilitating impactful research and education, and promoting equity and diversity in access to soccer medical knowledge. It also enhances the presence HSS has in soccer, complementing existing partnerships as the official hospital of the New York Red Bulls, US Youth Soccer, and FC Monmouth’s men’s and women’s semi-professional clubs. 

The Tribute Dinner is the premier fundraising event for HSS, recognizing physicians, philanthropists and business leaders who have made a major impact in the field of musculoskeletal medicine. The evening, hosted by Bob Papa, voice of The New York Football Giants, featured entertainment by Sara Bareilles.

The Lifetime Achievement Award is the highest recognition for an outstanding healthcare leader at HSS. “Dr. Hotchkiss is a transformative leader in musculoskeletal medicine who has had a significant impact on the field,” said Douglas E. Padgett, MD, surgeon-in-chief and medical director at HSS. “Throughout his career, he has helped redefine how we approach some of the most complex conditions in orthopedic care. His expertise, leadership and unwavering commitment to delivering the highest-quality care have not only advanced the standard of treatment but have also made a meaningful and lasting difference in the lives of the patients he serves.”

The HSS Tribute Dinner Award recognizes outstanding achievements in business and service to the community. “We are honored to celebrate Marina Kellen French for her longstanding leadership and commitment to HSS,” said HSS President and CEO Bryan T. Kelly, MD, MBA. “Her years of service on the HSS Board of Trustees and dedication to science and research have left a lasting impact on our institution and the patients we serve. From her transformative gift to the Kellen Tower, a landmark expansion of HSS’s Upper East Side campus, to the Kellen Scholars program she established, which has supported the research and discovery of dozens of the brightest minds in orthopedic medicine—her contributions have been instrumental in advancing our field.”

This year’s Tribute Dinner, attended by over 700 guests and raised more than $5 million for patient care, research and medical education.

HONOREES

Marina Kellen French

A philanthropist and avid supporter of the arts and sciences, both in the United States and abroad, Marina Kellen French is Vice President of the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation and President of the Marina Kellen French Foundation. A member of the HSS Board of Trustees and Board of Advisors for over 15 years, she has made an indelible mark on the organization helping to shape the careers of young investigators, blaze new paths for scientific inquiry, and transform how HSS cares for those affected by musculoskeletal conditions.

Mrs. French has long been a champion of science and research at HSS, culminating her lead gift to Kellen Tower, which opened earlier this spring and marks a major milestone in the transformation of HSS’s Upper East Side campus. In addition, she has created the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Clinician-Scientist Program, the Marina Kellen Chair in Complex Joint Reconstruction, the Marina Kellen French Foundation Directorship in Trauma, and a commitment to new research that will enable more patients to achieve successful outcomes from knee replacement surgery.

Mrs. French is a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, the American Academy in Berlin, Friends of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, and World Monuments Fund. She is a member of the Trustees’ Council of the National Gallery of Art, a managing director of the Metropolitan Opera, and a life trustee of the Morgan Library & Museum and WNET Channel 13. 

A recipient of numerous awards and honors, in November 2021 Mrs. French was named a Living Landmark by the New York Landmarks Conservancy for her outstanding contribu­tions to the city. She has received honors from the French government, including the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur award in 2022, and the Commandeur de L’ordre des Arts et Lettres, the highest distinction in the arts, in 2024. She has also received the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit (First Class) of the Federal Republic of Germany (2014) for her exceptional work in German-American relations. Mrs. French graduated from the Brearley School in New York City and the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and attended the New York School of Interior Design.

Robert N. Hotchkiss, MD

Dr. Robert N. Hotchkiss served as the inaugural Joel and Anne Bick Ehrenkranz Chair in Hand and Upper Extremity Research and Director of Clinical Research at HSS, where he has devoted much of his professional career to advancing orthopedic surgery, clinical investigation, and innovation in musculoskeletal care. He also serves as Associate Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College and previously led the Hand and Upper Extremity Service at HSS for more than a decade.

Dr. Hotchkiss received his undergraduate education at the University of Colorado Boulder, majoring in both Chemistry and Slavic Languages and Literature, before earning his MD from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he also completed his surgical and orthopedic training.

Internationally recognized for his pioneering work in hand, elbow, and upper-extremity reconstruction, Dr. Hotchkiss has helped shape modern approaches to complex elbow trauma, instability, stiffness, and reconstructive surgery. Over a distinguished career spanning more than four decades, he has made contributions that extend beyond the operating room into biomechanics, implant design, translational research, and the emerging use of machine learning and advanced imaging technologies in medicine. He is co-founder and advisor to Imagen Technologies and holds multiple patents in orthopedic devices and drug delivery systems.

A prolific author, educator, and mentor, Dr. Hotchkiss has lectured throughout the United States and internationally, served as Associate Editor of multiple editions of Operative Hand Surgery, and trained generations of surgeons who now lead programs around the world.

Dr. Hotchkiss and his wife, Stephanie, have two grown sons, Andrew and Thomas, who are involved in healthcare technologies and early-stage biotechnology investments.

"Better patient experiences are correlated with better health outcomes, which is why patients should always strive to seek care at a facility with a clear dedication to high-quality, patient-centered care,” said Dr. Alana Biggers, MPH, medical advisor at Healthgrades. “As an Outstanding Patient Experience Award recipient, HSS sets the benchmark for patient experience nationwide, ensuring that every patient feels heard, empowered, and confident throughout the care journey.”

For this annual analysis, Healthgrades evaluated Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) patient survey data across 10 key patient experience measures–ranging from room cleanliness to care explanations–to determine the nation's best hospitals for patient experience. Recipients of the 2026 Outstanding Patient Experience Award earned the highest overall experience scores, reflecting an unwavering commitment to exceptional, individualized care.

Healthgrades' analysis also identified three aspects of patient experience that best predict whether a patient will recommend a hospital to friends and family:*

• Doctor communication
• Nurse communication
• Clear communication about care when discharged

View the announcement, full Outstanding Patient Experience Award recipient list and Outstanding Patient Experience Award Methodology on healthgrades.com.

^*Healthgrades evaluated 3,020 hospitals that submitted at least 100 patient experience surveys to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), covering admissions from January 2024 to December 2024. Hospitals in the bottom 20% for overall clinical quality were excluded from consideration.

For patients navigating complex conditions, finding the right provider can be challenging. HSS serves patients across multiple locations and a wide range of musculoskeletal subspecialties. The new AI-powered agent acts as an intelligent guide, understanding a patient's specific needs, medical history, and preferences to match them with the most appropriate physician and care setting.

"Getting patients to the right care quickly is fundamental to everything we do," said Dr. Ashis Barad, Chief Digital and Information Officer at HSS. "This technology allows us to meet patients where they are – by phone, text, or online, and provide immediate, intelligent support. It removes barriers to care and ensures every patient receives the expertise they need when they need it."

Available 24/7 online, though text and phone, this system provides consistent real time support regardless of when or how a patient reaches out. Unlike traditional scheduling tools that require patients to navigate complex menus or wait on hold, Ema's conversational AI understands natural language, asks clarifying questions, and takes action in real time: booking appointments directly into patients scheduling systems and sending confirmation details instantly.

For patients with urgent needs, the AI performs intelligent triage, assessing symptom severity and care requirements to prioritize appointments appropriately. For those seeking specialized care, it navigates HSS's wide range of subspecialists to match patients with the right provider, factoring in location preferences, insurance coverage, and physician availability.

The technology reflects HSS's commitment to staying at the forefront of healthcare innovation. As part of a three-year engagement, HSS will expand Ema's AI capabilities into internal operations, including HR and IT support, freeing clinical and administrative staff to focus on patient care rather than routine inquiries.

"World-class care starts with world-class access," said Surojit Chatterjee, CEO and founder of Ema. "HSS is setting a new standard for how hospitals can use AI to improve the patient experience. This isn't about replacing the human touch, it's about removing friction so patients spend less time waiting and more time healing."

Unlike rigid chatbots that fail when questions deviate from a script, Ema's agentic AI reasons through complex scenarios, adapts to individual patient needs, and learns continuously from interactions. The platform integrates seamlessly with HSS's existing systems, ensuring data flows securely and appointments are managed without disruption.

HSS's deployment includes built-in safeguards: every AI decision is auditable, human staff can step in at any point, and the system is trained specifically on HSS protocols, policies, and care pathways. Patient data remains secure and compliant with healthcare privacy regulations.

The result is a faster, more personalized care journey. Patients no longer navigate a maze of phone menus or wait days for callback confirmations. They get answers in seconds, appointments scheduled in minutes, and the confidence that they're seeing the right specialist for their condition.

About Ema

Ema is a horizontal agentic platform building enterprise AI employees. These AI employees automate complex, multi-step workflows across functions such as Human Resources, Customer Experience, Finance and Sales, delivering speed, precision, and security at an enterprise scale. Designed for regulated industries including Healthcare and Insurance, Ema is trusted by Fortune 500 companies worldwide and backed by leading investors like Accel and Section 32. The platform ensures trust through compliance-ready security, bias-mitigating Turing tests, and full source transparency. With a library of pre-built agents and dedicated deployment teams, Ema delivers fast time-to-value, enabling enterprises to move rapidly from proof-of-concept to secure, large-scale production deployments. Learn more at ema.co.

As HSS continues to expand its clinical footprint and influence, strengthening enterprise Nursing and clinical leadership remains a strategic priority to ensure consistent quality, patient safety, and operational excellence across the system.

“We are confident that under Ann Marie’s leadership, HSS will continue to advance Magnet-level excellence, improve clinical quality and patient-centered outcomes, and drive growth with discipline and distinction,” said Bryan T. Kelly, MD, MBA, president and CEO, and Surgeon-in-Chief Emeritus, at HSS. “Her appointment to this new role reflects our commitment to fostering visionary leadership that strengthens our nursing practice and elevates the patient experience.”

In this role, Dr. McDonald will provide strategic leadership for Nursing across all sites and affiliates, with accountability for nursing quality, patient safety, workforce engagement, and the consistent application of HSS standards of care. In addition, she will oversee key clinical support services, including Pharmacy, Respiratory Therapy, and Laboratory Services, further strengthening system integration, performance management, and patient experience. Since September of 2025, Dr. McDonald has served as Interim CNE.

“Nursing is the foundation of our success, shaping every aspect of the patient experience and redefining excellence in musculoskeletal care,” said Mary E. Cassai, MPA, RN, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. “Our nurses are innovators, advocates, and leaders who set the standard for quality, compassion, and collaboration across the enterprise—ensuring every patient receives care that is exceptional, transformative, and centered on their needs.”

Dr. McDonald is a Registered Nurse with more than 20 years of experience across clinical operations, quality, performance improvement, and regulatory compliance. She has deep expertise in federal quality programs and accreditation and represents HSS on national advisory groups supporting CMS and The Joint Commission. A registered nurse, she holds her master’s degree and doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University, where she also served as adjunct faculty. She is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and the New York Academy of Medicine. “HSS is setting the standard for musculoskeletal health, and I am excited to help lead this next chapter of growth and innovation,” said Dr. McDonald. “Together, we will empower our nursing teams, drive advancements in care delivery, and shape the future of health with purpose and impact.”

At HSS the Chief Nursing Executive leads a team of more than 1,500 specialized nurses across the continuum of care at locations in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and Florida, overseeing support and advocacy for nursing quality, patient safety, nurse engagement, physician collaboration, and patient satisfaction. HSS is a recipient of the Press Ganey Pinnacle of Excellence Award®, which is based on patient surveys that include measures such as “Likelihood to Recommend,” “Overall Rating,” and “Teamwork.”

“We are proud of the strides HSS has made in nursing excellence and patient care, and we embrace both the responsibility and the opportunity to continue raising the bar,” said Douglas E. Padgett, MD, surgeon-in-chief and medical director at HSS. “Ann Marie exemplifies our core values at the highest level, helping us fulfill our purpose of helping every person live the life they love through the power of movement.”

Dr. McDonald’s new role at HSS is effective immediately.

The alliance brings together Jupiter Medical Center, the region’s leading independent medical center, and HSS, ranked No. 1 in orthopedics by U.S. News & World Report for 16 straight years. Together, they will offer patients comprehensive orthopedic care—from diagnosis and surgery to rehabilitation—delivered with the highest standards of quality, safety and patient experience.

“Jupiter Medical Center and HSS share a commitment to excellence in patient care,” said Amit Rastogi, MD, MHCM, President and CEO of Jupiter Medical Center. “This relationship ensures that people in our community have direct access to the same orthopedic expertise trusted by patients of all kinds worldwide, including professional athletes.”

Raising the Bar for Orthopedic Care

Patients will benefit from a full spectrum of expertise in joint replacement, sports medicine, spine surgery, and rehabilitation. HSS physicians will perform surgeries at Jupiter Medical Center’s new Johnny and Terry Gray Surgical Institute. The hospital is also nearing completion of a new five-story Patient Care Tower, featuring dedicated facilities for state-of-the-art orthopedic care and rehabilitation. 

“This collaboration reflects a unique depth of shared responsibility and opportunity to increase access to the world’s highest quality orthopedic care in Palm Beach County,” said HSS President and CEO and Surgeon-in-Chief Emeritus Bryan T. Kelly, MD, MBA. For nearly half a century, Jupiter Medical Center has earned the trust of the community one patient at a time; HSS brings more than 163 years of unparalleled specialization in advancing care that is foundational to quality of life.  Jupiter Medical Center’s continued investment in innovation and technology aligns seamlessly with our mission to provide the best orthopedic care available anywhere.”

Recognition and Reputation

Jupiter Medical Center has recently been named one of Newsweek’s World’s Best Hospitals and one of Money’s Best Orthopedic Hospitals in the United States. It has also been recognized by U.S. News & World Report as “High Performing” in hip fracture, hip replacement, and knee replacement, and holds multiple Blue Distinction Center+ and Joint Commission certifications.

HSS, founded in 1863, is the world’s leading academic medical center focused solely on musculoskeletal health. Patients come for HSS care from all 50 States and more than 100 countries, including athletes from more than half of all teams in the MLB, NBA, NFL and NFL teams.  It is the Official Hospital of 15 professional sports teams worldwide, and the only Official Hospital of an entire sports league: UFC. Its research and education institutes drive new treatments and evidence-based practices that improve outcomes for patients everywhere.

A New Destination for Orthopedic Excellence

“This partnership will help make Jupiter Medical Center the premier destination for musculoskeletal care in the region,” said Ryan W. Simovitch, MD, an HSS sports medicine surgeon based in Florida. “Patients will have access to advanced care close to home, supported by the resources of a global leader.”

For information about Jupiter Medical Center, visit jupitermed.com or call 561-263-2234. For more information about HSS, visit hss.edu.

About Jupiter Medical Center
Jupiter Medical Center is rated No. 1 in the region for quality, safety, and patient experience. Its award-winning physicians provide comprehensive inpatient and outpatient care, including specialty centers of excellence in cancer, cardiovascular care, orthopedics, neurosciences, and women’s and children’s services. Learn more at jupitermed.com.

AIM is designed to operate as an engine driving the development of novel medical devices, therapeutics, AI-enabled software, and other compelling innovations that improve movement, performance, patient care, and healthy longevity. The alliance will seek to unite traditional R&D capabilities like prototyping and engineering with the operational know-how, regulatory experience, and real-world validation with a focus on high-impact technologies in the musculoskeletal health and rheumatology market. HSS has specialized in these fields for more than 160 years.

Half of American adults experience a musculoskeletal health issue at some point in their lifetimes, and that percentage is expected to rise with the aging of the Baby Boomers. Musculoskeletal conditions are the leading cause of disability in the United States, degrading quality of life and creating a significant socioeconomic burden with healthcare costs approximating $420B in 2018. The prevalence of musculoskeletal conditions rises sharply with age, and as older adults become increasingly physically active, researchers predict a 123% increase in sports-related injuries in adults 65 and older through 2040. Fifty-six percent of Gen-Zers consider fitness a “very high priority,” and with their growing focus on healthspan, report a willingness to spend 110% more than Baby Boomers in exchange for a year of healthy life. Meanwhile, athletes, sports teams, and sports leagues are also looking for innovative solutions for injury prevention, diagnoses, and treatment. The NFL alone incurred $500M in costs due to musculoskeletal injury during the 2019 season.

“HSS represents one of the world’s largest concentrations of expertise in musculoskeletal health, known to advance the highest-quality care and quality of life so that people can get back to doing what they need and love to do most reliably and efficiently,” said Bryan Kelly, MD, MBA, President, CEO, and Surgeon-in-Chief Emeritus of HSS. “We believe that combining forces with Deerfield provides us with a powerful new avenue to fulfill that mission by co-developing and supporting innovations that carry the potential to change clinical practice, patient outcomes, and overall quality of life for the better.”

HSS’s academic rigor and clinical leadership is bolstered by an expansive global network of orthopedic surgeons, physician-scientists, specialists, and entrepreneurs who make up a nexus and magnet for innovation across all aspects of the continuum of care, while Deerfield brings a comprehensive platform of operational capabilities in healthcare built over decades, including a team of over 180 professionals, many of whom are scientists, clinicians, engineers, and specialists. Cross-functional teams like Deerfield Discovery and Development (3DC), Deerfield’s internal therapeutics R&D engine, and Deerfield Intelligence, the firm’s growing data and artificial intelligence arm, will team up with HSS clinicians and scientists and endeavor to quickly and rigorously evaluate and operationalize new technologies for the benefit of patients.

Promising innovations may be piloted and tested in real-world clinical environments, supporting early refinement with patient and clinician feedback. The alliance’s integrated resources – including state-of-the-art laboratory and medical device incubation facilities located at Deerfield’s headquarters, as well as HSS’s clinical and scientific expertise – aim to compress timelines for bringing new technologies to patients while ensuring rigorous validation and adherence to compliance and quality control standards.

“As a firm dedicated to innovation, we are extremely excited about the ability of HSS and Deerfield to extend active, healthy living during a period when demographics will drive extraordinary need and demand.”  said Jim Flynn, Managing Partner at Deerfield. “The strengths and capabilities of HSS and Deerfield are highly complementary and the potential for creating valuable innovations is extraordinary.”

Based on the study results, HSS is honored to be recognized on Newsweek’s list of the World’s Best Specialized Hospitals 2026.

Statista publishes hundreds of worldwide industry rankings and company listings with high-profile media partners. This research and analysis service is based on the success of statista.com, the leading data and business intelligence portal that provides statistics, relevant business data, and various market and consumer studies and surveys.

Content for Injury Prevention and Recovery

Beginning today across Peloton devices and the Peloton App, all Peloton Members can engage with new classes and programs designed for specific musculoskeletal focus areas aimed at preventing and recovering from musculoskeletal injuries. These initial Peloton Instructor-led classes address some of the most common requests by Peloton Members, and were developed in conjunction with HSS’s renowned musculoskeletal health experts:

●      Runner’s Knee with Kirsten Ferguson

●      Tennis Elbow with Katie Wang

●      Postpartum Movement with Robin Arzón

●      Bone Health with Joslyn Thompson Rule

●      Prevention Series: Desk Worker Strength & Mobility with Andy Speer

In addition to recovery-focused content that is currently in development and will be released over the coming months, Peloton has also partnered with The Recovery Shop to create and offer a Peloton Original Bike+ Rental package to HSS patients recovering from injury or surgery.

"Prevention and recovery from injury are both critical and inevitable when you live an active life,” said Peloton’s CEO, Peter Stern. “Through this unique relationship with the experts at HSS, we are deepening our commitment to our Members' long-term wellness and exploring a vital, often-overlooked, aspect of the fitness journey.”

Peloton Member Concierge Service

As part of Peloton’s commitment to keeping its Members fit and strong, Peloton Members now also benefit from an exclusive HSS Member Concierge, a service to facilitate access to orthopedic care specialists as part of their Peloton Membership. This service provides an easier path for Members to quickly connect with the HSS Perform team, who assist in finding the right specialist and scheduling appointments.

The Member Concierge service can be utilized for sports or orthopedic injuries, physical therapy, or consultations with an orthopedic specialist or surgeon. The service connects Members with experts at HSS locations in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Florida. Members can access the service by calling (212) 606-1884.

“HSS is bringing more than 160 years of specialization in fixing musculoskeletal problems to also helping people avoid injury, and live better and longer,” said HSS President, CEO and Surgeon-in-Chief Emeritus Bryan Kelly, MD, MBA.  “This collaboration extends our expertise to a national community famously committed to personal wellness and performance.”

About Peloton Interactive, Inc.

Peloton (NASDAQ: PTON) provides Members with world-class equipment and wellness solutions, ground-breaking software, expert human instruction, and the world’s most supportive fitness community. Founded in 2012 and headquartered in New York City, Peloton has millions of Members across the US, UK, Canada, Germany, Australia, and Austria. For more information, visit www.onepeloton.com.

The platform represents a significant step forward in expanding patient access to high-quality, accessible orthopedic and spine care nationwide, while addressing rising demand for advanced outpatient solutions. Legent CEO Jordan Fowler will lead the new platform, which combines Legent’s proven operating infrastructure and experienced management team, HSS’s depth of clinical knowledge and community of more than 1,750 alumni surgeons, and General Atlantic’s expertise in building and scaling physician-aligned healthcare platforms.

Many procedures that once required hospital stays can now be performed safely and efficiently in ASCs. The new independent platform aims to expand patient access to advanced orthopedic and spine care closer to home, delivering lower-cost care with improved outcomes in a more comfortable environment. The platform is purpose-built to create lasting partnerships with surgeons and health systems, providing physicians with opportunities for ownership and alignment through meaningful equity participation, clinical autonomy, and special access to HSS’s clinical protocols and advisory services. This will enable physicians and health systems to participate in the site-of-care shift and benefit from ASC-level efficiencies and economics. Over time, HSS and General Atlantic intend to expand the platform nationally through acquisitions, new partnerships, and de novo facilities.

“As the world’s leading academic medical center specializing in musculoskeletal health since 1863, HSS has a special responsibility to deliver the highest-quality care, improve mobility, and enhance quality of life,” said Bryan Kelly, MD, MBA, President, CEO, and Surgeon-in-Chief Emeritus at HSS. “Through this collaboration, we will extend HSS’s clinical expertise and patient-first standards to markets where demand for orthopedic and spine care outpaces supply, and where quality care is limited outside the hospital setting.”

“This platform brings together HSS’s clinical knowledge and General Atlantic’s company-building expertise to create community-based platforms that will expand patient access to premier orthopedic and spine care,” said Robbert Vorhoff, Managing Director and Global Head of Healthcare at General Atlantic. “We are excited to work alongside HSS and Legent to support physicians, deliver quality care, and improve patient outcomes and satisfaction across the country.”

Jordan Fowler, CEO and Chairman of Legent, commented, “Legent was founded on the belief that ambulatory surgery centers can deliver a superior patient and physician experience while lowering costs for everyone involved. We look forward to continuing to provide the highest quality of care and bringing our mission to more patients as part of this pioneering new platform.”

James Frank, Head of Strat Cap at BTG Pactual Global Alternatives, said, “We are proud of the value created through our partnership with the Legent management team. We wish General Atlantic, HSS, and the management team continued success as they embark on this next phase.”

Goodwin Procter LLP and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP served as legal advisors to HSS and General Atlantic. Ducera Partners LLC served as financial advisor, and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and McDermott Will & Schulte LLP served as legal advisors to Legent and Strat Cap.

U.S. News evaluated nearly 4,500 hospitals in 15 specialties. Hospital performance was assessed based on various measures, including patient outcomes, level of nursing care, patient-reported experience, and available technology such as computer-assisted orthopedic surgery. The methodology factored in data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the American Hospital Association, professional organizations, and medical specialists.

“We are once again honored to be recognized as a leader in our specialties of orthopedics and rheumatology,” said HSS President and CEO Bryan T. Kelly, MD, MBA. “This reflects the skill and dedication of every member of the HSS team, who work together to help people get back to what they need and love to do better than any other place in the world.”

“The U.S. News rankings underscore HSS’s continued leadership and commitment to musculoskeletal health, reflecting 162 years of clinical excellence, innovation, and patient-centered care,” said Douglas E. Padgett, MD, surgeon-in-chief and medical director of HSS. “Our consistent recognition as a top hospital highlights our steadfast dedication to maintaining the highest standards of evidence-based care.”

Patients come to HSS from all 50 states and more than 100 countries, often for complex medical conditions or challenging surgeries requiring highly specialized care.

“When faced with a challenging rheumatologic disease, every patient wants a rheumatologist they can trust,” said S. Louis Bridges, Jr., MD, PhD, physician-in-chief and chief of the Division of Rheumatology at HSS. “The high rating of HSS Rheumatology demonstrates clinical excellence made possible by our strong dedication to best practices and personalized care, and by our commitment to advancing musculoskeletal medicine through research, education, and innovation.”

As the world’s leading academic medical center specializing in musculoskeletal health, HSS maintains among the lowest hospital readmission rates for orthopedics in the nation, and among the lowest rates for infection and complications. HSS has been named No. 1 in the world for orthopedics by Newsweek each year since the “World’s Best Specialized Hospitals” survey was introduced in 2020.

HSS is one of only three US hospitals ranked No. 1 both nationally and globally in any specialty.

In 2024, HSS clinicians and surgeons provided specialized care to more than 248,917 patients with orthopedic or rheumatologic conditions, such as pain or injury to the back, neck, or joints; osteoarthritis; rheumatoid arthritis; lupus; scleroderma; and psoriatic arthritis. HSS performed more than 43,000 orthopedic surgical procedures in 2024.

HSS is the official hospital of and provides team physicians to more than 25 high-performing sports teams and leagues, including the New York Giants, New York Knicks, New York Liberty, Brooklyn Nets, New York Mets, New York Red Bulls, TCS New York City Marathon, National Basketball Players Association, Major League Pickleball, US Youth Soccer, and UFC. It is designated a Medical Center of Excellence by Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).

* Copyright © 2025 U.S. News & World Report, L.P. Data reprinted with permission from U.S. News.

“Ambient scribing was just the beginning,” said Dr. Ashis Barad, Chief Digital and Technology Officer at HSS. “With Abridge’s foundational AI expertise alongside our orthopedic leadership, we can dramatically elevate clinical note quality, communication, and ultimately, care outcomes. What distinguishes this collaboration is Abridge’s combination of AI expertise and a genuine commitment to developing solutions together that align with the specific needs of orthopedic care. This is the kind of collaborator we value—innovative, forward-thinking, and committed to growing with us.”

The Abridge AI platform is designed for the depth and complexity of orthopedic surgical documentation. HSS is a living laboratory for innovation, serving its unique patient population with highly individualized care. Abridge’s specialty-specific documentation and revenue cycle management technology complements this adaptable approach.

“At HSS, Ambient AI is transforming the patient experience by quietly capturing clinical conversations in real time—freeing doctors from screens and paperwork so they can focus entirely on care,” said Answorth Allen, MD, Associate Surgeon-in-Chief and a sports medicine surgeon at HSS.  “It’s a behind-the-scenes innovation that’s making healthcare more human.”

In each clinician-patient conversation, Abridge automatically detects care setting, specialty, and language, to generate the appropriate clinical documentation in real time. Across outpatient, inpatient, and emergency department settings and supporting 55+ specialties and 28 languages, Abridge silently works in the background so clinicians can focus on what matters most: their patients.

The upcoming orthopedic specialty documentation enhancements will leverage Abridge’s proven AI platform with the unmatched orthopedic expertise of HSS—producing notes that more fully capture imaging, laterality, and procedural details about imaging, laterality, risks, and treatment options, resulting in for clearer documentation, improved coding precision, and more efficient clinical workflows.

“We are going a million miles deep on each specialty and care setting to deliver documentation that works as both the perfect clinical artifact and billable note,” said Dr. Shiv Rao, CEO and Co-Founder of Abridge. “Transforming care at scale is incredibly complex. Specialty-focused institutions like HSS are catalysts for driving meaningful, scalable innovation for all of our enterprise partners.”

About Abridge

Abridge was founded in 2018 to power deeper understanding in healthcare. The enterprise-grade AI platform transforms medical conversations into clinically useful and billable documentation at the point of care, reducing administrative burden and clinician burnout while improving patient experience. With deep EHR integration, support for 28+ languages, and 50+ specialties, Abridge is used across a wide range of care settings, including outpatient, emergency department, and inpatient.

Abridge’s enterprise-grade AI platform is purpose-built for healthcare. Supported by Linked Evidence, Abridge is the only solution that maps AI-generated summaries to source data, helping clinicians quickly trust and verify the output. As a pioneer in generative AI for healthcare, Abridge is setting the industry standard for the responsible deployment of AI across health systems.

Abridge was awarded Best in KLAS 2025 for Ambient AI in addition to other accolades, including Forbes 2025 AI 50 List, TIME Best Inventions of 2024,and Fortune’s 2024 AI 50 Innovators.