Enquirer Consulting Group
Prepared for Hannah Kemp and Jocelyn Nowak | Surgo Health | October 2026
As of Oct 7, 2026. Counts from published federal data on US health systems, 2023, dated in the notes at the foot
You asked which buyers there are at health systems. This page answers that for the work your own pages describe for providers and health systems, understanding why patients disengage, finding high-risk patients earlier, and seeing what shapes how communities use care. It sizes every US health system by how many hospitals it runs, shows three types that buy differently, and lists the roles that usually sign for a patient intelligence or AI tool at each. It says nothing about which systems Surgo Health already works with.
US health systems
640
2023. Each runs at least one hospital and at least one physician group giving comprehensive care.
Systems with ten or more hospitals
100
The largest systems by hospital count.
Systems that offer a health plan
180
The system or one of its hospitals owns a plan or partners with an insurer.
Systems with a hospital serving many low-income patients
200
At least one hospital with a high share of low-income patients.
US health systems in 2023, by the number of hospitals each runs, and how many in each size band are of each type.
| Size | Systems | Include a major teaching hospital | Offer a health plan | Include a hospital serving many low-income patients |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One hospital | 240 | about 60 | about 40 | about 50 |
| Two to four hospitals | 200 | about 70 | about 40 | about 60 |
| Five to nine hospitals | about 100 | about 60 | about 40 | about 30 |
| Ten or more hospitals | about 100 | about 60 | about 60 | about 60 |
| All sizes | 640 | 250 | 180 | 200 |
The roles that usually sign for a patient intelligence or AI tool. Titles vary, and at smaller systems one person often holds several of them.
| Type | Roles |
|---|---|
| Every system, at the system office | Chief strategy officer, chief population health officer or VP of population health, chief data and analytics officer, chief medical officer; a chief digital or AI officer where the system has one. At a one-hospital system the CEO or CMO often signs. |
| Systems with a major teaching hospital | The same system office roles, plus research leadership, the clinical trials office and the chief research officer, who usually own trial recruitment and study design. |
| Systems that run their own health plan | The plan's chief medical officer, the VP of care management or medical management, and the head of member engagement, who own finding high-risk members early and keeping them engaged. |
| Systems serving a large low-income population | The VP of community health, the chief health equity officer, and whoever leads the system's community health needs assessment, alongside population health. |
Three questions this page cannot answer from a count, said in words rather than shown as numbers.
Hospitals outside a system. This page counts systems only. A stand-alone hospital, or a physician group with no hospital, is not in it, and buys more like a single site.
Who already buys behavioral or social data. No public list says which systems already have this kind of data, so every row counts every system of that size and type.
Changes since 2023. The counts are the newest published year. Systems that merged or formed since then are picked up in the named version.
Where the counts point.
Denominators, definitions and sources
The named version of this page, the actual systems inside a row, is built one row at a time. If you want to walk through a row together, pick a time at cal.com/ecg. Prepared by Ben, ben@enquirerconsulting.com.
Enquirer Consulting Group | enquirerconsulting.com