Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare is at an "inflection point" with artificial intelligence as the health system has started experiencing benefits from the technology, the organization's CEO said in an earnings call.
HCA chief executive Sam Hazen said the 186-hospital system recently laid out a digital strategy on how it plans to deploy technology such as AI over the next five to seven years, according to the Oct. 25 call.
"We see many opportunities to improve our administrative functioning, our operational management of our business and then, ultimately, the clinical outcomes for our patients," he said in the call. "And so we're early in that journey. We do have some areas where we're seeing promising results."
Mr. Hazen cited AI's use in staff scheduling, via patient demand forecasting and workforce allocation, as well as the revenue cycle, with managing receivables and helping with claims denials.
"We're going to be resourcing it even more as we push into the next few years, and we expect to get incremental improvements in '25 and '26 and on into the rest of this decade as we mature our efforts on this particular front," he said in the call. "It's our view that we're at an inflection point."