Jennifer Griffey, CFO of Brattleboro (Vt.) Memorial Hospital, told Becker's that with shared IT leadership and AI, the organization is expecting to see increased cost savings.
Brattleboro is currently in the process of implementing two AI technologies to help with administrative loads, with the first being the implementation of an AI-powered clinical documentation tool.
The tool, called DAX CoPilot, is from Nuance Communications, a healthcare artificial intelligence company owned by Microsoft. The tool will help automatically create clinical summaries for review and entry into the hospital's electronic health record.
The second is Jorie, which Ms. Griffey said works like a revenue cycle "bot," as it uses AI tools to automate tasks. For example, instead of requiring staff to initiate a call to the insurance company, the system autonomously retrieves the necessary information, initiates the claim submission, and processes and files the claim on the organization's behalf.
"Advantages are that it can enhance the work our staff are already doing, and in some cases, we may be able to save on some operating expenses as the AI could fill voids that occur when attrition takes place," Ms. Griffey said. "It tends to be very difficult to hire entry-level workers in revenue cycle, so if we can have a bot created that performs the same set of keystrokes as a human, then we'll be able to both reduce costs and increase efficiency."
Another way Brattleboro Memorial Hospital has been able to realize cost savings is through a shared CIO.
"We successfully hired a CIO who now serves both BMH and another healthcare institution in Brattleboro," she said. "We are getting a high-skilled CIO and only paying half the costs."