Practicing Excellence Acquires Sageful AI to Accelerate Scalable Behavior Change Across Healthcare

Combined organization strengthens personalized, in-workflow coaching aligned to organizational priorities

SAN DIEGO, Feb. 10, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Practicing Excellence, the leading platform for technology-powered human development in healthcare, today announced the acquisition of Sageful AI, a leader in AI-powered coaching that helps organizations reinforce learning, sustain behavior change, and demonstrate measurable results in everyday work. The acquisition strengthens Practicing Excellence’s mission to drive human behavioral change at scale by delivering deeply personalized, organizationally aligned development that reaches everyone, every day, where work actually happens.

Practicing Excellence helps healthcare organizations build the skills to communicate and lead effectively in the moments that matter with patients, teams, and each other. For years, the company has delivered a scalable human development methodology proven to drive measurable healthcare outcomes. The addition of Sageful AI enhances the company’s ability to deliver highly personalized, evidence-based coaching embedded directly in real work while remaining tightly aligned with organizational priorities.

“Practicing Excellence has always been about changing behavior, not just delivering content,” said Stephen Beeson, MD, Founder of Practicing Excellence. “Sageful AI enhances our ability to deliver the right guidance, at the right moment, with even greater precision. Together, we are building the future of human development in healthcare by leveraging technology to personalize, scale, and map development to specific organizational goals.”

Strengthening Context, Alignment, and Scale

Practicing Excellence partners with health systems and medical groups to achieve measurable goals through a scaled human development approach. Its platform delivers personalized coaching across four aligned domains: patient experience, team engagement, leadership development, and clinical excellence.

The acquisition of Sageful AI strengthens the organization’s ability to:

• Embed organization-specific strategy, values, and competencies directly into skill building
• Deliver personalized guidance and coaching without sacrificing consistency or scale
• Support clinicians, leaders, and teams in the flow of work with resources that deliver

Together, the combined platform will deliver embedded coaching and real-time insights paired with measurement capabilities that connect learning directly to action. “This is a bold step in how organizations can drive real behavior change,” said Gidon Margolin, President and CEO of Practicing Excellence. “We’re reimagining human development in healthcare by delivering what teams need to improve: context, alignment, and scale. Practicing Excellence brings decades of real-world experience, an evidence-based development library, measurable outcomes, and deep trust with leading health systems and medical groups. Sageful AI brings AI-powered personalization designed for moments of decision and pressure. The technology adapts to individual context without losing alignment, grounded in learning transfer and behavior change rather than information delivery. Together, we deliver timely support that aligns teams and accelerates the behaviors that improve outcomes for patients, care teams, and organizations.”

Validated by Real-World Practice

Healthcare organizations have already seen the power of this combined approach through the My PE Coach proof of concept focused on delivering human development within the flow of work.

• Personalized to the learner
• Aligned with the organization
• Scaled across the enterprise

“When we teamed up with Practicing Excellence to experiment with a new concept, we saw firsthand what human development looks like when it is personal, contextual, timely, and embedded in our everyday work,” said Chrisie Scott, SVP and Chief Marketing Officer, Virtua Health. “Our physicians, nurses, and leaders turned to My PE Coach in the moments that matter, getting practical guidance for challenges like setting the right tone in difficult conversations, navigating team conflict, communicating change and expectations clearly, and strengthening everyday coaching and feedback. What stood out was watching these small shifts in how we do things spark amazing success stories that could lead to real impact across our organization.”

Debbie Dover, SVP of Talent and Engagement and Chief Human Resources Officer at Ballad Health, added, “Our work with My PE Coach reinforced where human development is headed. Our teams need development that fits into their day, not something that pulls them away from it. The breadth, depth, and relevance of these resources aligned with our organizational priorities while delivering timely, personalized support exactly when it was needed. We are grateful for our partnership with Practicing Excellence and excited to expand this capability more broadly.”

A Shared Philosophy

Sageful AI was founded on the belief that technology should augment—not replace—human judgment. That philosophy closely mirrors Practicing Excellence’s behavior-first approach to human development. The addition of Sageful enables deeper visibility into participant behavior, helping organizations to better measure participant progress, identify successful actions, and reinforce behaviors that drive meaningful performance gains.

“Sageful AI was built to reinforce the best concepts in leadership, learning, and development to show up in the flow of work,” said Michael Papay, Co-Founder and CEO of Sageful AI. “By fusing proven approaches with organizational priorities and each individual’s context, we help translate intent into visible behavior change and measurable results. Joining forces with Practicing Excellence allows us to bring that capability to scale in healthcare, where leaders need to visualize change is happening while seeing the impact they can trust.”

Continued Focus on Impact

Practicing Excellence has demonstrated measurable results across healthcare organizations, including reductions in turnover and burnout, improvements in patient experience, and gains in leadership effectiveness. The combined organization will continue to focus on helping members move from intent to impact through clear priorities, aligned action, and sustained behavior change. Current organizational partnerships and programs will continue uninterrupted, with additional capabilities introduced as the teams and technology are integrated.

About Practicing Excellence

Practicing Excellence powers human behavioral change at scale in healthcare. Through technology-powered, personalized coaching, Practicing Excellence helps organizations improve patient experience, team engagement, leadership effectiveness, and clinical excellence. Guided by purpose, rooted in mastery, and brought to everyone, Practicing Excellence enables people to practice what matters until it becomes standard practice. The company has delivered proven impact for leading healthcare organizations, driving improved outcomes—decreasing nurse turnover by 55%, reducing physician turnover by 50%, achieving a 22% reduction in physician depersonalization, and improving 100% of self-assessed leadership skills.

About Sageful AI

Sageful AI builds technology grounded in 30 years of thought leadership on learning transfer, leveraging AI to help organizations translate leadership, learning, and development investments into observable behavior change and measurable impact. By embedding coaching support into everyday work, Sageful AI aligns organizational priorities with individual context to drive sustained results where it matters most.

CONTACT: For those interested in learning more, reach out to Practicing Excellence at connect@practicingexcellence.com.