Hospitals trail behind other healthcare organizations including payers and life sciences companies when it comes to artificial intelligence initiatives.
For its third annual Optum Survey on AI in Health Care, Optum interviewed 500 healthcare executives at hospital, life sciences, health plan and employer organizations about their AI investments and priorities.
Sixty percent of life sciences companies, 47 percent of employers, 46 percent of health plans and 29 percent of hospitals reported having implemented an AI strategy at their respective organizations. Further, 48 percent of hospitals said they have an AI strategy in place but have not yet deployed the plans.
Here's what the different sectors said their top three priorities are for AI development.
Hospitals:
- Improve reimbursement coding: 45 percent
- Monitor Internet of Things data: 38 percent
- Accelerate research: 36 percent
Health plans:
- Improve reimbursement coding: 40 percent
- Automate administrative processes: 40 percent
- Detect fraud, waste and abuse: 39 percent
Life sciences:
- Accelerate research: 47 percent
- Identify patients for trials: 44 percent
- Enable personalized communications: 39 percent
Employers:
- Monitor IoT data: 47 percent
- Accelerate research: 45 percent
- Enable personalized communications and automate administrative processes: 35 percent
Editor's note: This article was updated Nov. 2 at 4 p.m. CT.