The macro case for healthcare transformation is well established. An aging population is driving demand upward and the clinician pipeline cannot keep pace. Costs are rising faster than margins can absorb.
Mouneer Odeh, the inaugural chief data and artificial intelligence officer at Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai, said those structural forces are the argument for why meaningful AI deployment cannot wait.
“We have a very limited supply of doctors and nurses, and so it’s really difficult to be able to meet that increasing demand,” Mr. Odeh said during an episode of the “Becker’s Healthcare Podcast.” “We’re also seeing costs growing very, very rapidly. That’s creating a tremendous amount of pressure on health systems across the country.”
The traditional response to clinician shortages, adding more people, isn’t possible at all hospitals and the workforce options are wearing thin. Mr. Odeh argues the industry has a narrow window to think differently.
“We have a real opportunity to think about how we reengineer the way that we deliver care, and the services that we provide to be much more efficient so we can really rise to the challenge of taking care of our communities at a time when they need us most,” he said.
That reengineering will come in two waves. The first is already underway: AI as a productivity multiplier. At Cedars-Sinai, where Mr. Odeh joined roughly a year and a half ago, the health system has invested in cloud infrastructure, built a HIPAA-safe generative AI platform for staff and pushed data capabilities into the hands of clinicians, administrators and operations teams. The results have been measurable with 97% of the individuals using them reporting an “important difference” in their work.
“[AI] is a tremendous tool for enhancing the productivity of our workforce, our clinicians, and we’re starting to see those opportunities spread dramatically,” he said.
The second wave will be harder to absorb. Mr. Odeh described it not as acceleration but as transformation, a restructuring of how work is organized and what jobs look like.
“The second wave is really more of transforming workforces and workflow,” he said. “It’s changing the way we work and as a result, changing the jobs that we have.”
In clinical settings, that shift is already apparent. Cedars-Sinai’s investments in ambient AI and documentation tools have produced an outcome that clinicians describe in personal rather than operational terms.
“When we’re investing in ambient AI and other documentation improvement solutions, optimization solutions, what we’re seeing is they’re experiencing a better quality of interactions with our patients,” Mr. Odeh said. “They’re experiencing less cognitive overload.”
Outside the clinical environment, a different kind of shift is occurring. Non-technical staff are finding themselves able to accomplish things that once required specialized skills. Mr. Odeh described them as unexpected beneficiaries of the system’s push to democratize AI access.
“We are seeing some power users outside of the IT function that are doing amazing things that just simply couldn’t have been done without a technical background,” he said. “And because they are wired in a certain way, they’re able to take advantage of these tools and the technology to do amazing things.”
Managing that transition responsibly is where much of Mr. Odeh’s focus sits. As AI becomes more capable and more autonomous, health systems face a calibration challenge. How much of the work can be handed to the technology, and how much needs to stay in human hands?
Cedars-Sinai has kept that dial turned toward humans so far, treating AI primarily as a tool used by people rather than a system acting on its own. But Mr. Odeh is clear-eyed that the dial will move.
“What I’m most curious about is the relationship between people and technology and how that’s going to evolve,” he said. “It feels like almost every week we get up and something new is out there. It’s changing how people experience technology.”
OpenAI’s ChatGPT reached 100 million users within a few months of launching. Many people started experimenting with the technology at the same time; physicians, nurses, administrative staff, patients and their families all started using ChatGPT and other AI platforms in their daily lives.
“The technology was so natural and now it’s becoming a new interface of how we interact with the technology,” said Mr. Odeh. “We are starting to see that with our clinicians. When we were investing in ambient AI and other documentation improvement solutions, optimization solutions, they’re experiencing a better quality of interactions with patients. They’re experiencing less cognitive overload and folks who are using generative AI solutions are now building agentic workflows and they tell us it’s making their lives easier. They never imagined that they could do some of the things we’re doing.”
The “power users” now outside of the IT department at Cedars-Sinai are using AI to develop workflows and agents that wouldn’t have been possible without a technical background before.
“That democratization of technology is shifting things. It’s empowering our nontechnical folks to do things in amazing ways,” he said. “At the same time, we are seeing that technology is reshaping society. There are really deep ethical and social considerations, and it is having an impact on politicians. It’s having an impact on neighborhoods and electricity prices. I’m really curious to see not only at the micro level how technology is being adopted and driving change, but as you accumulate those changes across society, how will it change society? How will it change the economy? There is a big debate about how far the technology will go.”
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