Steve Davis, MD, president and CEO of Cincinnati Children’s, has seen many changes in healthcare over his 30-plus year career as a clinician and executive leader. While change has been constant, the challenges facing healthcare leaders today are familiar to him.
“A lot of people are focusing on the challenges as being different from what we’ve seen in the past. But I’m not sure they are much different. I think what’s different about this current era is the speed at which things change,” said Dr. Davis said on an episode of the “Becker’s Healthcare Podcast.” “I think that’s something we have to understand and build capacity to adapt to that pace of change.”
Dr. Davis realized AI would change healthcare early and decided to train all employees on ChatGPT in November 2023. Within six months, the information services team developed an artificial intelligence tool that around 50% of employees had adopted; it was the fastest adoption in the health system’s history.
“That’s the way of the world today,” Dr. Davis said. “One of the things we are looking at here is how do we build adaptive capacity in our leaders. In the past, when you wanted to bring on something new, you often had a change management approach and you often had an individual person who was the project lead or the change management leader. I think that’s becoming a thing of the past. The challenge with thinking about change as project-based is that it assumes there’s a beginning and an end to the change. I think that’s no longer the case.”
AI adoption is a prime example. Hospitals don’t adopt one sweeping AI application like an EHR platform. Instead, it’s a continuous process to implement and improve; new tools become available daily and the leadership team needs a strong process to assess and incorporate them.
“We’re trying to build resilience in our leaders and understand that while challenging, this era is also providing optimism because we can now do things for our patients that we couldn’t do in the past,” said Dr. Davis. “That sense of optimism is key, as is building resilience across an organization. Now more than ever, building the learning organization is critical to success.”
Fast change can be stressful for workers if they can’t keep up and maximize the new tools. Many employees are worried about whether they’ll be replaced by AI.
“We tell them we are not looking to replace employees with artificial intelligence, but if you’re not willing and able to learn how to use AI tools, you might be replaced by somebody who does,” said Dr. Davis. “We’ve really invested the time, effort and emphasis on upskilling our workforce so they are ready to meet the demands of this ever-changing environment we live in.”
Rina Bansal, MD, president of Inova Alexandria Hospital and senior vice president of Inova, has a similar message for the next generation of healthcare leaders. Leaders often galvanize their teams with a vision of 3-5-10 years into the future. But with technology evolving rapidly, it’s hard to predict what will be possible even in one year’s time. The new technology is amazing, but can also be overwhelming.
“As a leader, you need to know who will be leading organizations five years from now so they are really thriving. These leaders will have to be people who will thrive upon change and who are constantly evolving, who are flexible, who are agile and who really are adaptive in their mindset,” said Dr. Bansal, during an interview with the “Becker’s Healthcare Podcast.” “It will require leaders who understand technology. They don’t have to be experts in technology, but they will have to understand the value of technology and be able to technologically innovate in partnership with their leaders and teams while constantly focusing on the human element.”
Healthcare is a human relationships-driven business but the strongest leaders keep that front and center with their teams.
“The fact that we’re going to become more and more technologically advanced will require more and more of the people skills and the skills to focus on the compassion of healthcare and the humanity in healthcare that will be important for our future,” said Dr. Bansal.
