In 2024, major health systems embraced artificial intelligence across various applications, including easing documentation burdens, revenue cycle, and addressing claims denials.
Here’s a look at how the three largest health systems leveraged AI in 2024, as reported by Becker's:
Ascension (St. Louis): In May, Nashville, Tenn.-based Ascension Saint Thomas began utilizing egnite's CardioCare technology, an AI-powered platform designed to enhance cardiovascular care. The platform helps physicians identify at-risk patients earlier, aiming to reduce deaths, strokes, and hospitalizations. It also facilitates timely referrals to specialists for conditions like valvular disease, atrial fibrillation, and heart failure while prioritizing life-saving treatments. Furthermore, it ensures patients with critical cardiovascular conditions receive care consistent with established medical guidelines.
By August, Ascension Saint Thomas expanded its use of AI by introducing an AI-powered administrative assistant for its second- and third-year internal medicine residents. Through this initiative, residents can leverage Suki, an AI healthcare assistant, to alleviate documentation burdens.
CommonSpirit Health (Chicago): In March, CommonSpirit unveiled its proprietary AI assistant, Insightli. This tool enables the organization to generate written content securely, eliminating the risks associated with sharing sensitive information externally.
HCA Healthcare (Nashville, Tenn.): HCA Healthcare has been using Google's AI-powered nurse-handoff note. The nurse handoff note allows providers to leverage artificial intelligence to improve workflows on time-consuming clerical tasks. The tool was developed by HCA using Google's AI and is being tested at four HCA Healthcare hospitals in Tennessee and Florida.
Additionally, during an October earnings call, HCA Healthcare CEO Sam Hazen described the organization as being at an "inflection point" with artificial intelligence, highlighting the tangible benefits the health system has begun to realize. He pointed to AI's role in optimizing staff scheduling through patient demand forecasting and workforce allocation, as well as its impact on the revenue cycle, including managing receivables and addressing claims denials.
Also in October, HCA announced a partnership with Commure to develop and implement an ambient AI platform across its network of healthcare professionals. The collaboration has produced a multi-specialty, EHR-agnostic platform designed to enhance critical workflows in emergency departments, hospitalist operations, and ambulatory care settings.