All AI, all the time

At the opening of the HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition, Hal Wolf , the HIMSS president & CEO, jokingly offered a little challenge to those in Las Vegas.

He defied anyone to go on the exhibition floor and find a booth that didn’t mention AI in some fashion.

It was the safest bet in Sin City. AI dominated conversations at HIMSS, which Wolf suggested would happen in an interview before the conference. AI similarly took center stage at the ViVE digital health conference in Nashville in February. I’m Ron Southwick, lead editor of Chief Healthcare Executive?, and this edition of CHE 360 focuses on recent discussion on AI from both events.

Leaders from Samsung Medical Center highlighted the South Korean hospital’s growing use of AI, both in automating tasks and assisting nurses. The hospital has also developed robots designed to engage and comfort pediatric patients.?

“We introduced AI solutions to reduce repetitive tests for nurses, such as assessing patient risks and documentation. We also redesigned process like scanning medication and other essential workflows,” said Dr. Seung-woo Park, the president of the Samsung Medical Center.

Aashima Gupta, Google Cloud’s global director of healthcare strategy & solutions, spoke with Chief Healthcare Executive at the HIMSS conference about the evolution of AI and its potential to ease stress on the workforce.

“Healthcare used to be lagging behind on adoption of technology,” Gupta said. “This moment, in AI, is different. We are seeing Gen AI really help with some of that burnout, those administrative burdens.”

John Halamka, the president of the Mayo Clinic Platform, offered some fascinating insights on AI and the changes it’s bringing to the healthcare industry during a session at the ViVE Conference. Given the aging population and the shortage of clinicians, he says, “We have to use AI.”

Halamka acknowledged the thorny questions around the use of AI in supporting patient care. But he raised a worthwhile question: In areas where there are no doctors, is an AI solution, even a flawed one, better than nothing?

He also outlined a future where health systems could be vulnerable to lawsuits if they don’t use AI.

“You’ve got to guess that in just a few years, it will become the standard of care to use AI as an augmentation,” Halamka said. “And of course, the definition of malpractice is you varied from the standard of care. So, AI will be part of what we do every day.”

City of Hope is using AI to devise new ways to help improve the patient experience and improve cancer care. We talked with Simon Nazarian and Nasim Eftekhari at ViVE about the ways City of Hope is turning to AI.?

“It’s the acceleration of bench to bed,” Nazarian says. “When it comes to research, how are we able to get our discoveries into clinical trials and as part of a standard of care is a great application. We have the opportunity to accelerate the science, and it's very exciting.”

Even amidst the palpable enthusiasm for AI at both HIMSS and ViVE, healthcare leaders said they’re worried about the prospect of reduced federal spending and the uncertainty surrounding health policy in Washington. Hospitals and health systems are worried about possible cuts in Medicaid, and leaders say they’re distressed about the NIH’s plans to reduce billions in spending to cover administrative costs associated with research.

Both conferences also reinforced that conversations about AI are changing. Increasingly, hospitals are less inclined to obtain a new AI tool simply to say they have one. They’re asking pointed questions to AI vendors about how they can solve some of the actual problems hospitals are facing. Hospital leaders offered advice to vendors: learn more about hospitals and their challenges before pitching products.

We’ll obviously be writing more and more about AI in the coming months. Thanks for reading.?