Advancing Innovative Solutions in Healthcare
Innovative Care Saves and Transforms Lives
Innovative advancements are shaping patient care now more than ever and will inform how it will be delivered tomorrow. Patients and communities are well served when healthcare systems invest in high-caliber, cutting-edge solutions to make care more accessible and easier to navigate, and to improve health outcomes.
Sutter is strategically investing in advancing clinical excellence, research and clinical trials, artificial intelligence and other new technologies to help patients get well and stay healthy and make high-quality, evidence-based healthcare easier for physicians to deliver.
Sutter Health was named a Top 5 Best Workplace for Innovators in 2025 by Fast Company. “Thoughtful innovation helps us make everyday healthcare more connected, accessible and patient-centered.”
- Chris Waugh, Sutter Health Chief Design and Innovation Officer
Nationally Recognized for Exceptional Care
Transforming Clinical Care through Innovative Solutions
A few examples of how Sutter is advancing state-of-the-art treatments and making it available to patients.
AI, a healthcare game-changer
A number of digital tools and new technologies are reshaping and improving healthcare, but none more than AI. AI-driven insights and content help us innovate and personalize care by improving the speed and accuracy of diagnoses, making care more readily available, and making it easier to deliver.
We are harnessing AI’s capabilities in the right way – with robust governance and controls – to ensure its usage is effective and working in the best interest of our patients and our people.
Some ways we’re doing that include:
- Reducing administrative burden for physicians by integrating an AI tool that assists with generating responses to patient emails and “listens” during patient visits to take notes and generate a visit summary that flows directly into a patient’s electronic health record. Physicians review and approve all content before it reaches patients, and they report increased satisfaction and more time with patients.
- Helping patients with chronic disease stay healthy through a fully digital care delivery model called Sutter Sync that allows patients to track and manage chronic diseases, such as hypertension and diabetes, at home, on their schedule, and in concert with a dedicated care team that can provide timely support and treatment adjustments.
Advanced neuroscience care
Sutter continues advancing its award winning, high-quality neurologic care through systemwide efforts focused on improving the speed and precision of diagnoses and treatments, and the patient experience.
- Sutter’s nationally recognized Ray Dolby Brain Health Center in San Francisco is increasing its capacity to provide cutting-edge treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and other memory disorders, with plans to move to the Sutter Advanced Neuroscience Complex at our CPMC Mission Bernal Campus, which will offer comprehensive neurological care beginning in 2028.
- Expanded access advanced imaging for epileptic seizure detection, including new headset technology that brings outpatient brain monitoring to rural areas and hospitals without on‑site neurologic coverage.
- Advanced neurosurgical and brain‑stimulation therapies – from incisionless surgery and minimally invasive options such as focused ultrasound and laser ablation to deep brain stimulation and vagus nerve stimulation – providing a comprehensive array of surgical treatment options for brain tumors, refractory epilepsy, movement disorders, and improved motor recovery after stroke.
High-caliber stroke and neurovascular care
New tools continue to advance Sutter’s nationally recognized neurovascular and stroke care programs, including:
- AI-powered imaging to support earlier detection and faster triage of stroke, helping reduce diagnostic delays and improve care coordination across Sutter’s 17 certified stroke centers that collectively care for more than 6,000 stroke patients each year.
- Sutter’s Telestroke Program allows neurologists system-wide to collaborate in real time to triage and treat patients via telemonitoring and video conferencing, especially critical in rural areas where specialists aren’t available.
- Sutter’s Mobile Stroke Unit uses specially equipped ambulances to administer critical treatment to patients experiencing a stroke on the way to a hospital. The program is making a difference – 53% of stroke patients treated by a mobile stroke unit made a complete recovery after three months compared to 43% treated by a standard ambulance.
Leading advancements in cancer care
From lifesaving research to award-winning programs, Sutter delivers access to specialized cancer treatment close to home:
- AI-powered screening tools improve early detection and reduce false positives, helping radiologists identify cancers earlier with greater accuracy. Read more.
- Among the first in the nation, Sutter Health is offering advanced robotic breast cancer surgery that gives eligible women a minimally invasive treatment option that may reduce scarring, preserve nipple sensation and support recovery. Read more.
- CAR T-cell therapy and other new immunotherapies that harness immune system power to fight cancer.
- GammaTile® neurosurgery therapy for more precise and safer treatment of brain tumors.
- Access to 150+ cancer clinical trials, and care informed by the latest evidence means patients benefit from the forefront of cancer innovation.
100+ years of discovering new cures and therapies through research and clinical trials
We currently participate in 600 clinical trials, giving hope to more than 10,000 patients in areas like cancer, diabetes, and transplant care. Two examples are:
- Researchers at Sutter’s Sequoia Center for the Science of Aging are leading one of the largest international multi-site studies to find ways to help us preserve strength and physical independence as we age.
- Neurologists from the Sutter Health Memory Clinic and Ray Dolby Brain Health Center are investigating a drug called donanemab, a new generation of U.S. FDA-approved drugs to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, stopping memory loss and cognitive decline before it begins.
Pioneering robotic surgery
Sutter Health is among the first in California to implement the latest da Vinci 5 robot, the gold-standard in minimally invasive surgery. While robotic surgery is accessible to patients across the system, the da Vinci 5 is the first of this type. Its advanced features reduce recovery time, scarring and post-surgical pain for patients.
Innovation in Action
Read more about how Sutter is putting innovative solutions into action
