How outpatient growth is redrawing the healthcare footprint
Key points:
- • Outpatient volumes are expected to grow 20% over the next decade, compared with 7% for inpatient care.
- • Providers are building broader footprints across ambulatory, community, and virtual settings.
- • Hospitals remain essential as health systems decide how different sites of care work together.
October 2026 — Outpatient demand is set to grow nearly three times faster than inpatient care over the next decade. That gap is forcing U.S. health systems to redesign their healthcare footprint and rethink where every capital dollar goes.
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Healthcare performance improvement company Vizient’s 2026 Impact of Change forecast projects a 20% rise in outpatient volumes over the next decade, compared with 7% for inpatient care. The pressure is on providers to put services where patients are.
The site of care shifts
The change reflects a broader redesign of the patient journey. Consumer expectations, cost pressures, technology, and new care models are reshaping where services are delivered.
Morgan Stanley’s 2026 Global Healthcare Conference identified consumerization as a major theme, with patients taking greater control of their healthcare decisions. EY’s outlook for 2026 also points to targeted M&A in ambulatory and lower-acuity care as a growth path for providers. Providers need capacity where demand is growing, but they also need the specialties, technology, and coordination to make those access points useful.
CLS Health illustrates this approach in Houston. In a recent interview with Invest:, CEO Megan Owen described expansion into Sugar Land, Katy, Baytown, Cypress, and Pearland as a strategy guided by patient populations, service gaps, provider needs, and hospital partnerships.
“Every new provider, specialty, and location is part of a larger strategy to improve access, strengthen coordination, and deliver better outcomes for the communities we serve,” Owen said.
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The healthcare footprint becomes distributed
Healthcare is moving closer to patients as providers rethink where routine and preventive care should happen. The result is a broader healthcare footprint that extends beyond traditional facilities into communities, workplaces, schools, homes, and digital platforms.
In Raleigh-Durham, Amplify Health has expanded from five to 14 locations while adding mobile, school-based, and employer-focused services. Its model brings primary care, behavioral health, dental, and pharmacy services closer to patients across Wake County and rural Franklin County.
In an interview with Invest:, CEO Scot McCray described the expansion in terms of access. “The real impact is that we’re now able to bring comprehensive primary care, behavioral health, dental and pharmacy closer to where people actually live and work,” McCray said.
Amplify shows what a distributed healthcare footprint means in practice: Providers can expand access by changing where services are placed and by bringing multiple services into the same local network.
Technology connects the network
A broader healthcare footprint also raises the importance of the systems that connect it. AI, remote monitoring, digital navigation, and virtual care can extend the reach of physical facilities. Their value depends on how well they connect patients, providers, and information across settings.
CLS Health is already applying AI to scheduling, billing, and provider documentation. “Technology should take work off the provider’s plate, not take the provider out of the room,” Owen said.
As care spreads across more locations and channels, technology becomes part of the operating infrastructure rather than a separate digital initiative. The priority is making a larger network easier for clinicians to coordinate and for patients to navigate.
Hospitals still anchor the network
The expansion of outpatient and community-based care does not eliminate the need for hospitals, it only changes how they fit within the broader system.
In San Antonio, University Health is building two new community hospitals scheduled to open in 2027. In an interview with Invest:, Community First Health Plans President and CEO Theresa Rodriguez Scepanski identified healthcare navigation as a central access challenge, particularly for people managing chronic conditions.
“A key challenge identified in the community is the complexity of navigating healthcare,” Rodriguez Scepanski said.
Hospitals remain essential for complex and high-acuity care, even as routine, preventive, behavioral, procedural, and follow-up services move closer to where patients live and work. A sound healthcare footprint strategy will depend on how well those sites of care work together.
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