Tampa (Fla.) General Hospital does not love pilots, Scott Arnold, executive vice president and chief digital and innovation officer of the health system, told Becker’s.
“In healthcare, pilots often become a slow ‘no.’ We prefer to test quickly and scale quickly. If something isn’t going to scale, we end it and move on,” Mr. Arnold said.
That philosophy has helped Tampa General put 61 AI applications into production, from a digital voice agent that has avoided 48 hires to ambient listening tools that are convincing physicians to delay retirement.
While Mr. Arnold is hesitant to describe Tampa General as “mature” in AI, he said the health system measures itself by adoption.
“I don’t think anybody is ready to declare they’re terribly mature, because the surface is moving so quickly,” he said. “It’s still very early days in terms of how health systems are using artificial intelligence to support themselves, administratively or in the clinical environment.”
From an adoption standpoint, however, Tampa General ranks in the top decile among its peers, according to Gartner and Epic benchmarks, based on how much AI it is deploying and how quickly.
That speed is supported by structured governance. Mr. Arnold said Tampa General has built an AI governance framework designed not to slow innovation but to accelerate it responsibly. The governance model creates what he described as a “single registry” of AI assets, allowing the organization to track what tools are in its environment, what they are doing and how they are being monitored.
At present, 61 AI applications are in production across the enterprise. Some are native to Epic, the health system’s EHR. Others are built on Tampa General’s Frontier platform. The organization is also using generative AI tools through Epic and Microsoft, leveraging Palantir capabilities and deploying third-party solutions.
One of the most visible deployments is a voice agent the health system uses to address call center operations. Developed with Hyro, the agent is named Aimee and serves as what Mr. Arnold calls Tampa General’s first digital co-worker.
Aimee launched in September to help address high call volumes and patient access challenges. Since going live, the tool has had approximately six minutes of downtime and otherwise has operated 24/7.
“With our voice agent, we’ve avoided hiring 48 additional staff members in the experience center. That’s real cost avoidance,” Mr. Arnold said. “Our human team still handles complex cases and patients who prefer speaking with a person, but AI has allowed us to scale without scaling headcount at the same rate.”
In addition to operational automation, Tampa General is also seeing clearer ROI with AI on the ambient side.
“We initially deployed it [ambient listening] to reduce physician burnout — not to increase visit volume,” Mr. Arnold said. “What’s been powerful is that several physicians have told us they’re delaying retirement because ambient documentation has reduced their administrative burden. This has led to lower attrition and lower recruiting costs.”
He added that physician recruitment is expensive and that extending careers is a win for the individual and the health system.
“That’s tangible ROI,” he said.
Tampa General was also one of the first health systems to work with Microsoft on ambient listening for nurses and patient care technicians. The tool became generally available in December, and the organization is licensing it broadly across the enterprise.
“For physicians in clinics, ambient listening has been a game changer. For bedside nurses, it’s more transformational — it changes how they perform assessments,” Mr. Arnold said. “They have to narrate what they’re doing in real time, which is a behavioral shift.”
Looking ahead, Mr. Arnold said he is “very bullish” on agentic technology.
He envisions AI agents that can manage referrals, offer appointment times at imaging centers closest to a patient’s home, coordinate diagnostics and labs and follow up on next steps — automating care coordination workflows that currently require manual effort.
“It’s not taking the humanity away,” he said. “It’s scaling our people to be where they need to be and spend more time with the people who need us the most.”
Tampa General is exploring how to build or leverage an agent platform, taking advantage of capabilities developed by partners such as Epic and Palantir while filling in gaps with additional agents.
“I think that future is bright,” Mr. Arnold said.
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