2025 Year-End Reflections
By Jon Eggleton, Co-Managing Partner
As we wrap-up our ninth year in existence as a company (woot!), there are many things we have to be grateful for at Traktion. Too many, in fact, to try and cover in a brief blog post. As we look back on 2025 and what we’ve accomplished these last twelve months, there’s one word that I keep coming back to again and again.
Connection.
Like many of you reading this, we first started returning to in-person conferences and industry events regularly in 2024, as people sought more face-to-face connection after several years of the opposite trend, post-COVID. 2025 saw a significant ramp-up in that arena for us, both on the conference and client front. Numerous networking and happy hours, industry forums, meetups and summits. In-person client visits that weren’t necessarily for a specific business reason or project deadline, but just because we hadn’t been face-to-face for awhile, and it felt like we should. An Accor study late last year estimated that one in-person meeting has the same impact as three virtual ones, validating the greater impact of the former.
Yes, for a service-based business like ours, cultivating client relationships and networking is the lifeblood that keep us moving forward. But even beyond that, it’s reminded us of just how important making “in real life” connections continues to be, even in an increasingly digital and remote world. Particularly within healthcare there is a shared experience we all have around shaping it, and how to harness technology and AI to re-imagine a future where the patient actually feels like they’re in charge. Over the past twelve months we’ve met countless new friends and colleagues who are passionately working on solutions to these challenges, and while our own work might never directly heal a single patient, it means something to us to be part of a more efficient healthcare system of tomorrow.
As I think more deeply about “connection” in the context of healthcare, I can’t help but think it’s also part of what we need to see more of as patients ourselves. We’re all too familiar with the increasingly transactional nature of how healthcare is delivered. Make an appointment. Get automated appointment reminders, and (probably) check-in paperwork that isn’t any less annoying even if in digital form. Show up. Wait (often for too long). More pre-questions, more waiting, this time in the exam room. All to sometimes see a physician for just a handful of minutes before they are off to their next awaiting patient. It doesn’t feel very “human” when doctors spend more time in your EHR chart than with you (which they typically do, according to studies). But here’s the good news - change is coming.
Clinician shortages are real, and it’s not realistic to think we can turn the clock back to a time when that wasn’t the case. But we can use technology to give more time back to those who are charged with our care. More efficient intake systems that deliver relevant care information at the right time. Wearables and remote monitoring devices that extend services beyond the exam room. Interconnected networks that can identify symptom patterns quickly and accurately. And clinical and operational data that flows quickly and in real-time to those that need to see it to make actionable decisions. In a world where feeling seen and heard is in short supply, these and other improvements should result in a patient experience that at least feels more individual to each of us. Where clinicians can spend more time thinking about how to make patients feel better, instead of data entry and paperwork burden. And where healthcare organizations can become engines for wellness, and not bottlenecks of inefficiency stuck to yesterday’s business models. Change is coming soon, and that’s something exciting for all of us to look forward to.