Health systems have limited IT budgets and countless companies to spend on, but one investment remains nonnegotiable as organizations move deeper into AI and digital transformation.
For Sha Edathumparampil, chief digital and information officer at Coral Gables, Fla.-based Baptist Health South Florida, the “no regret” priority is building strong, modern infrastructure and cybersecurity before anything else.
Mr. Edathumparampil joined Baptist Health South Florida last year after more than 30 years in technology roles across media, financial services, travel and transportation. At the health system, he leads technology and digital transformation strategies to ensure clinicians and staff have what they need to deliver care in what he described as a rapidly changing environment. He said the pressure on hospitals today is significant, from rising labor and supply costs to reimbursement challenges and cybersecurity risks, and technology must be built on a foundation strong enough to support more advanced tools in the future.
Baptist Health is deploying ambient listening across its physician base and early results are encouraging.
“Ambient listening has been a significant new addition to the toolbox,” said Mr. Edathumparampil, during an episode of the “Becker’s Healthcare Podcast.” “It is still being deployed across all of our physician base, but it is already showing significant improvements in terms of the pajama time reduction, which is the time that physicians are having to spend after hours updating documentation, but also the cognitive load. We really want the physicians to be able to use their sort of bandwidth to care for the patients and diagnose and treat and so on as opposed to figuring out the documentation.”
The system is also using digital tools to track incidental findings and support pharmacy workflows, and has a strong roadmap guiding additional AI and automation efforts. But for all of the innovation underway, Mr. Edathumparampil emphasized that the industry’s biggest risk lies underneath — in outdated networks, legacy systems and uneven security readiness.
“We are in this phase or time where the technology advancements are coming at us really, really fast,” he said. “When you look at the technology news and updates every week, there is a new AI development or capability that comes to market and that’s just in AI. There are other things on the horizon as well. There are a number of other clinical technologies coming forward, and the two underlying necessities are the core infrastructure from an IT or technology perspective as well as the cybersecurity system, which includes the team as well as tools and processes, everything from resilience capabilities to business and continuity planning.”
Without strong foundational systems, health organizations will struggle to adopt or scale these technologies effectively. Many health systems haven’t kept their systems and infrastructure updated, which will limit growth.
“In the absence of a modern foundation, two things, or three things are likely are going to happen: one, it’s gonna be difficult for you to implement these technologies to take advantage of these transformative technologies,” Mr. Edathumparampil said. “Two, it will be more expensive to take advantage of it. And then three, it’ll take longer.”
Those risks are especially challenging as hospitals work to manage margins, address workforce shortages and meet rising consumer expectations. Overall, many hospitals and systems are struggling financially without an easy path forward.
“This squeeze on margins is a major concern,” said Mr. Edathumparampil. “As we’ve seen in the last year, a number of hospitals closed or otherwise had to deal with that situation in really tough, tough ways. On top of that, we have a persistent workforce shortage. The high levels of clinician burnout also impacts everything we do.”
Mr. Edathumparampil said IT must also evolve to support organizational growth without adding disproportionate cost within the “no-regrets” strategy. That includes using AI and automation inside IT itself to reduce operational expenses and help bend the cost curve as Baptist Health South Florida expands its ambulatory and virtual care footprint.
“If we don’t manage the costs from an IT perspective, which tends to be a meaningful portion of the overall cost of growing the footprint, and the cost grows linearly with everything else, then from a margin perspective it becomes really difficult for healthcare systems to operate,” said Mr. Edathumparampil. “IT itself has had to transform and evolve. All of these new capabilities including AI and everything else that has come forward, we have to take advantage of it and be able to bring the cost curve down.”
The future will bring even more opportunities to improve the standard of care with AI and digital technologies. Mr. Edathumparampil expects momentum toward personalized medicine and genomics, driven by growing consumer interest in wellness and recent scientific breakthroughs. He also sees potential in ambient intelligence — AI-powered assistants that support clinicians and patients in daily life — as health systems continue building integrated digital ecosystems.
“Increasingly personalized medicine using some of these highly advanced technologies is going to start playing a much bigger role or factor into healthcare,” he said. “In addition to that, there is an opportunity for ambient intelligence inside and outside the hospital environment where people are out and about doing their daily lives, for an intelligence agent or health assistant that providers and patients can rely on to take care of them, monitor them and anticipate some of their needs. On the provider side, it can streamline clinical workflows so they don’t have to do as much work manually.”
For all of that to become reality, he said the foundation must come first and systems that make smart, bold investments will position themselves for faster evolution and modernization.
“I would look at it as a no-regrets investment investing in the foundation to upgrade and getting it up to currency,” he said.
At the Becker's 11th Annual IT + Revenue Cycle Conference: The Future of AI & Digital Health, taking place September 14–17 in Chicago, healthcare executives and digital leaders from across the country will come together to explore how AI, interoperability, cybersecurity, and revenue cycle innovation are transforming care delivery, strengthening financial performance, and driving the next era of digital health. Apply for complimentary registration now.
