Quantum Technologies Strategic Imperatives for Health and Healthcare Leaders 2025

Stage 2: Prototype readiness (3–5 years) The largest group of “pilotable today” use cases are in this category, and is laid out in Table 8. These use cases already have enterprise pilots and clinical validation studies under way. They represent the frontier for near-term competitive advantage; early movers can secure partnerships, access scarce talent and build proprietary clinical datasets.Actionable items to enable prototype readiness –Launch pilots in neurology or cardiology departments to evaluate OPM-MEG and bedside MCG performance in real patient cohorts. –Partner with hospitals or telecommunications companies (telcos) to create QKD-secured links for imaging or EHR transfers and benchmark against cybersecurity standards. –Define clear KPIs (diagnostic accuracy, time-to-triage, key exchange stability, avoided breaches). First-mover advantage: Generate faster and more accurate diagnostics, reduce cyber risk and improve patient trust in data handling. Stage 3: Experimental readiness (6–10 years) A second set of applications is progressing from proof-of-concept towards prototype. These are not yet enterprise-ready, but pilots are showing that quantum tools can capture real-world complexity in ways that classical methods struggle with. For providers, this points towards faster and more accurate treatment planning and improved surgical outcomes. Actionable items to enable experimental readiness –Engage in pilots using actual hospital scheduling or treatment datasets to benchmark quantum against best-in-class classical optimization and AI. –Develop hybrid workflows where annealers or quantum neural networks (QNNs). complement machine learning for staffing, treatment planning or surgical decision support –Invest in workforce readiness by training clinical operations teams and data scientists in quantum optimization and modelling. –Shape evaluation standards in consortia with other providers, to ensure reproducibility, regulatory compatibility and sufficient capacity as these systems mature. First-mover advantage: Accelerate deployment, improve treatment precision, and reduce complications and patient wait times.Prototype examples TABLE 8 Use case examples End user Ecosystem partner Wearable OPM-MEG (optically pumped magnetoencephalography) for paediatric/neurology diagnosticsSickKids, Toronto Cerca Magnetics Bedside/portable AI-assisted MCG Mayo Clinic SandboxAQ Quantum biomarker algorithms for multimodal cancer dataUniversity of Chicago Infleqtion Quantum-secure hospital data links Abeer Group Quantasphere Quantum Technologies: Strategic Imperatives for Health and Healthcare Leaders 17