Top Integrated Health Systems in 2026

Integrated health systems are uniquely suited for the challenges facing modern healthcare. They combine medical services, providers, and different levels of care into one connected network. All of the care sites within that network function under the same shared governance, EHR infrastructure, quality standards, and specialist access, which can improve access and cost for patients and improve consistency in the care they receive. 

With this in mind, our team decided to review the top integrated health systems, based on data from official health system sources, government publications, annual impact reports, and other trusted industry sources, and rate the top 5 systems on the following criteria:

• Multi-site care coordination: Consistent communication and coordination across hospitals, clinics, and outpatient locations tends to lead to better patient experience and outcomes.
• Virtual health program maturity: Effective virtual healthcare removes access barriers, saves time, and expands medical access to underserved populations.
• Clinical specialty breadth: Many healthcare systems claim to cover a wide range of specialties, but only offer them at flagship facilities. This measures how specialty care stacks up across the entire system.
• Interoperability and health IT: A robust EHR infrastructure, continuous data sharing across sites, and strong technology integration give clinicians a clearer view of a patient’s medical profile, cut down on mistakes caused by siloed data, and avoid unnecessary repeat tests and appointments, which saves providers time too.
• Patient reach and care access: This measures the number of patients served, the system’s geographic coverage, and their reach into underserved communities to determine how well these systems are doing at providing timely treatment and preventative services to all and to combat the rise of chronic health conditions.

Methodology note: Reports accessible from public health systems generally measure virtual care in terms of visit volume, service availability, and patient reach. They do not typically report whether clinicians gathered findings via integrated devices during those visits. For the purposes of this comparison, virtual health maturity measures access and scale, while device integration and value are addressed separately.

The Top Integrated Health Systems of 2026

Note: Other notable health systems, including Intermountain Health, Geisinger, UPMC, and Providence, were also considered for this comparison. However, we did not include them in the final ranking because the publicly available information did not support a consistent comparison using the established criteria. Their omission from this list is not a judgment about their clinical quality or level of integration.

1. Kaiser Permanente

Topping our list is Kaiser Permanente, which is a “payvider” health system, meaning it acts as both a provider of health insurance and as a clinical care provider. This means that a patient’s insurance, primary care, specialist referrals, hospital and emergency care, and telehealth visits are all under one roof, which already puts Kaiser at an advantage in terms of multi-site coordination and interoperability. On top of that, at 12.9 million, Kaiser Permanente has the largest patient base on this list. This is particularly impressive given the fact that they have 40 hospitals and currently only cover 8 states. 

While its geographic coverage is relatively small compared to some health systems, Kaiser did recently expand into Nevada in 2026 through a partnership with Renown Health. In terms of how they’ve adopted telemedicine and virtual care, they lead the pack there as well, with 32% of their outpatient visits happening via telehealth, and by offering 24/7 virtual care at no extra cost. Their key specialties are primary care, oncology, cardiology, behavioral health, and pharmacy.

2. Advocate Health

Ranking second is Advocate Health, which earns its placement thanks to its virtual-first mode of care and success in offering rural healthcare solutions. In 2025 alone, Advocate facilitated 2.2 million virtual encounters, a 30% increase from the previous year, across 47 services at 258 sites. 15,000 of those encounters were from rural telehealth patients. 

In addition to that, they have the largest “Hospital at Home” program in the country, which uses remote monitoring and a blend of virtual and in-person visits to give patients hospital-grade care from the comfort of their own home. This alone reduced hospital readmissions by more than 20%. The program largely serves those from rural areas that have long been disadvantaged when it comes to healthcare access. Advocate Health has 69 hospitals and over 1,100 care sites. While its reach may not be as vast as other entries on this list, they continue to show impressive growth, both in the number of facilities and patients served and in their approach to telehealth.

3. Cleveland Clinic

Next up is the Cleveland Clinic, operating in northeastern Ohio, Florida, Nevada, Toronto, Abu Dhabi, and London. As the first entry on this list with international coverage, the Cleveland Clinic covers 140 different medical specialties across 23 hospitals and 300 outpatient facilities. This alone shows how strong their distributed care delivery model is. In 2025, they completed almost 16 million patient encounters, including 1.2 million virtual appointments. 

While those numbers are formidable, it’s important to note that the number of unique patients they saw that year was 3.6 million, trailing behind both Advocate Health and Kaiser Permanente. Their telehealth offerings are also slightly less mature, and they don’t offer the same level of integration as Kaiser’s payvider model or the same level of remote patient outreach as Advocate’s at-home initiatives. Still, the Cleveland Clinic has recently made exciting updates, including the launch of a 10-year alliance with Siemens Healthineers in July 2026. This initiative seeks to advance MRI, CT, radiation oncology, and interventional oncology across all of the system’s locations.

4. Mayo Clinic

Along with their locations being world-renowned for handling rare and complex diseases and conditions, the Mayo Clinic is a strong example of an integrated health system. While they only have three US campuses (Rochester, MN; Phoenix, Arizona; and Jacksonville, Florida) and one in London, they have more than 70 hospitals and clinics within that network and over 7,300 physicians that people travel to from all over the world to seek treatment. They also made recent news regarding the future of AI in healthcare by announcing a collaboration with Microsoft to develop a pioneering AI model specifically for healthcare.

In terms of an academic, multi-site specialty care provider, there is arguably no match for the Mayo Clinic. Due to their select number of locations, they remain less accessible than earlier entries on this list. As of the time of publication, their telehealth services appear to mainly support on-demand primary care, neurological consultations, and behavioral health.

5. CommonSpirit Health

For a healthcare system with reach, there’s CommonSpirit Health. They operate using a Clinically Integrated Network (CIN) model, which connects independent community providers to shared standards of care. This model is distinct from many of the other entries on this list, in part because some of the care sites operate under their own independent governance rather than under CommonSpirit’s. However, they appear to have maintained consistent, quality care across their network. 

This allows CommonSpirit to cover 24 states, including 158 hospital-based locations and more than 2,200 care sites offering key specialties like oncology, cardiology, behavioral health, women’s health, and primary care. Additionally, their virtual nursing model reduced first-year RN turnover by 43% and emergency department visits by 21%.

How Integrated Health Systems Can Extend Virtual Care Beyond Video

Each of the top integrated health systems above demonstrates a strong in-person and remote care model. They reach patients in rural and difficult-to-access environments, using video visits to extend their community impact. That baseline empowers local providers to address many patient needs close to home, but some cases require expertise that is not available at every care site. In some cases, local onsite teams may need a cardiologist or pulmonologist to weigh in before they can comprehensively diagnose a patient, or decide on the next steps of their care plan. They may even need a specialist to help them decide whether a patient can be treated locally or needs to travel for additional care.

Video can bring that specialist into the appointment, but it does not provide the blood pressure reading, ECG waveform, diagnostic image, or auscultation finding needed to fully address the patient’s needs. The next evolution of telehealth should allow local clinicians to capture those findings during the visit, and remote specialists to review them alongside the patient’s symptoms, history, and visual presentation in real time.

This modern virtual care model is made possible by GlobalMed®. Through their virtual care infrastructure, eNcounter®, local teams can use integrated clinical devices to share synchronized diagnostic information with remote providers during a live consultation. GlobalMed supports more than 55 clinical modalities, along with bidirectional HL7 and FHIR integration, so relevant patient evidence can move into the EHR as part of the visit. For organizations caring for patients across rural, remote, federal, and distributed settings, this coordinated model combines video’s reach with a specialist's clinical perspective.

For more information on how GlobalMed can transform your healthcare systems, request a Demo.