Health information technology is an ever-evolving field with plenty of subtopics ripe for news coverage. If you are looking to incorporate health IT into your reporting, or you’re just getting started as a general reporter who periodically tackles health IT, here are some suggestions for finding story ideas.
1. Review news sources and social media, and/or sign up for alerts.
Journalists can keep up with current trends by perusing periodicals that cover technology and health IT topics, such as STAT, MIT Technology Review, Wired, Healthcare IT News, Becker’s Health IT, TechCrunch and Mashable, as well as seeing what health IT stories are covered by general news sources such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, etc.
You can sign up for e-newsletters on health IT topics offered by publications and by groups like the American Medical Informatics Association, Becker’s Health IT and others that provide daily digests of stories. Or you can set up alerts through Google or other sources to filter out health IT news or a specific subtopic. You also can glean ideas from posts on platforms like Bluesky or Facebook — but verify everything first.
From there, you can devise story possibilities: Can you take a national story and make it local to your area? Is there a local story you can turn into a national news or trend story? Can you find a second-day or follow-up angle to a breaking news story? Can you pursue a story on what patients or physicians/health care workers like and don’t like about a new technology?
Tech stories in particular generally can be parsed out into niches that fit trade publications. So, you could take an idea and pitch it to magazines/newsletters that cover various specialties within health and medicine. If a particular person/innovator is of interest, pitch a profile of them to a trade publication, or find out where they went to school and pitch a profile to that person’s university alumni publication.
2. Check out peer-reviewed journals.
There are many journals dedicated to technology and health IT topics, such as the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, NEJM AI (from the New England Journal of Medicine), the Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare, and Telemedicine and e-Health. A wide variety of health IT topics also are covered in more comprehensive journals like the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Journalists can find story ideas or keep up on trends by reviewing some of the topics covered in these publications, by reading news release sources like EurekAlert! or Newswise, or by doing a search for a particular topic on a database like the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed. If a particular journal article of interest is behind a paywall, you can contact the journal and request access as a member of the press, look for the authors’ contact information and ask them for a copy, or reach out to the hospital or university press office where the corresponding author is located.
3. Attend conferences/webinars.
I attended HIMSS 2025 last March, a large annual global health conference in Las Vegas held by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society. For three days, I logged thousands of steps while traversing a vast conference center and viewing various presentations on innovative programs/initiatives in health IT. I also spoke with vendors at the exhibit hall. So far, I have pitched and sold two stories based on information I learned there (enough to cover the cost of my travel), but I still have many other ideas percolating that I want to tackle in 2026. Meanwhile, registration is open for HIMSS 2026. Free registration is available for the media.
Other health IT conferences throughout the year include the following. Contact the press offices of the host organizations for free press registration:
- ViVE, held by HLTH (pronounced “health,” a community focused on global health innovation) and the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME). The 2026 meeting is scheduled for Feb. 22-25 in Los Angeles.
- HLTH’s conference will be held Nov. 15-18 in Las Vegas.
- CHIME has a fall forum from Nov. 11-14 in Denver.
- The Computer Electronics Show (CES) is held in January, featuring lots of talks on tech trends and from tech manufacturers. The next one is Jan. 6-9, 2027, in Las Vegas.
- The American Medical Informatics Association holds an annual symposium that I have attended in the past. This year, it’s Nov. 7-11 in Dallas.
- Becker’s Healthcare has an annual health IT and digital health conference. In 2026, it will be in Chicago from Sept. 14-17.
- The American Telemedicine Association holds an annual conference called Nexus, which will be held from May 12-15 in Orlando this year. The ATA also hosts an annual Telehealth Awareness Week with a series of webinars on current trends in the field.
- Healthcare IT Today publishes a list of additional conferences.
These groups also hold some smaller conferences each year in different cities, or virtually. If you can’t spare the time/financial investment to travel, you can sometimes view the meeting agendas online to get ideas, or sign up for webinars. And don’t forget — AHCJ is holding Health Journalism 2026 this year in Minneapolis from May 27-30.
4. Use your (or your friends’/family members’) personal experience.
Health technologies are constantly popping up in medical settings. I got an idea for this AHCJ blog post after being peppered with appointment reminders from my eye doctor’s office. At a mammogram appointment a couple of years ago, the radiology tech asked if I wanted to pay $40 to have my scans read by AI in addition to a radiologist. A writer friend in New York City was asked about that service. We planned to pitch a story about it, but then we saw several similar stories in other media. The bottom line: Act quickly!
5. Follow the government
Proposed legislation, news out of Washington, D.C., and initiatives from state and local governments, all can become good health IT stories, either as a standalone story or as part of a roundup or trend story.
For example, in December, President Trump signed an executive order aimed at blocking states from crafting their own regulations for artificial intelligence, the Associated Press (and other media) reported. Journalists could unpack what this means, how state legislatures are adjusting and what the implications would be for health care. At the end of December, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced $50 billion in grants to all 50 states to bolster health care in rural communities, with many planning technology improvements.
