How to prepare for AI at your hospital: Key thoughts from 5 health IT executives

Hospitals and health systems across the country are beginning to integrate artificial intelligence into their daily processes to improve workflows and care quality and realize financial savings. However, there is much untapped potential.

Here, five health IT company executives discuss how hospitals and health systems can prepare for AI applications and employ them most effectively in the future.

Mudit Garg. Co-Founder and CEO of Qventus (Los Altos, Calif.): "AI technology is becoming mainstream much faster than people realize. Many experts believe that AI-based solutions will be commonplace in the next three to five years.

We find that hospital executives prefer to start using AI to improve operations for the simple reason that it is less emotional than using it to inform clinical decisions. Rather than replacing a doctor's judgment, operational AI ensures the optimal care is delivered reliably and consistently; basically, it enhances the impact of the doctor's judgment.

In addition, as health systems look to increase the impact from EMR investments, AI solutions can help achieve this by leveraging all the data collected in these important systems of record."

Charles Koontz. President and CEO of GE Healthcare IT and Chief Digital Officer of GE Healthcare (Chicago): "AI is pushing us to new boundaries and will force us to rethink the traditional hospital. Computers are learning to review images and assist radiologists in clinical decision-making, and physicians located hundreds of miles away are examining, diagnosing and treating patients via telemedicine.

As the industry becomes more dependent on AI solutions, physicians and hospitals need to share best practices and communicate outcomes, facts and metrics to adapt to this new approach. They must also have an open mind about the potential of AI to aid them in addressing the major quality, cost and access issues central to healthcare.

In the near future, we predict that these digital tools will become as critical to quality healthcare as medical imaging equipment is today."

Greg Kuhnen. Senior Director of Research at Advisory Board (Washington, D.C.): "To prepare for the coming wave of AI-enabled applications, health systems should focus on acquiring and integrating their data streams from across the care continuum and building familiarity with data-driven decision-making through their existing analytics and clinical decision support programs."

Fatima Paruk, MD. CMO of Allscripts Analytics (Chicago): "Healthcare systems and physicians can prepare now by establishing data governance, infrastructure and strategy; and by gaining an understanding of where the limitations are today, and what the data has the power to do for us.

As AI systems consume large amounts of data, the best preparation is to make the effort to accurately collect, annotate and curate existing data. Data has extreme value, and knowledge of the process of making the data available for analytics should be a key objective of any institution."

Lisa Suennen. Managing Director at GE Ventures (Menlo Park, Calif.): "Clinicians should prepare now by learning about AI — what its inherent strengths and weaknesses are — and becoming comfortable with technology that can be a tool, not a threat. For those who aren't technically conversant, it's an excellent time to invest in education on the topic to know how best to maximize the human side of medicine through targeted technological application."

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