As healthcare organizations grapple with labor shortages and tighter margins, health system CEOs are looking toward technology to help boost efficiency to solve some of these pressures.
Northwell Health President and CEO Michael Dowling is advocating for embracing technology, particularly AI, as one way to achieve the efficiencies necessary to combat financial issues hospitals are facing.
"Everybody's focused on figuring out how to maximize and optimize the use of technology — especially now with artificial intelligence and its potential," he said. "I think that we can use AI to dramatically reduce a lot of the labor-intensive things: documentation, predicting future outcomes and more."
The New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based health system is exploring how AI can increase efficiencies within its business by establishing a center of excellence dedicated to AI.
Northwell's CEO isn't the only one betting on AI. Cleveland Clinic President and CEO Tom Mihaljevic, MD, said the health system is focused on using the technology to make its business "smarter."
"We're very excited about our ability to use artificial intelligence to run our own business smarter, better in a more efficient way," he said during his annual state of the clinic address.
Cleveland Clinic has initiated several pilot programs incorporating AI solutions. One is an AI-driven patient portal known as an advice companion. The portal provides individuals with chronic diseases with prompt, computer-generated responses about their condition, replacing traditional messages from their physicians.
Artificial intelligence is also being used to capture patient-caregiver conversations, allowing caregivers to dedicate more time to patients and less to paperwork, with computer-generated notes being reviewed for accuracy, according to Dr. Mihaljevic. For instance, AI is used in MyChart to generate compassionate, detailed and timely responses to patient queries.
Cleveland Clinic is also collaborating with an AI-driven company to predict patient influx and surgeries to and optimize resource allocation. This technology enables scaling up healthcare provision to more patients, addressing concerns about access to care amid a caregiver shortage.
The hope that AI and technology will make healthcare operations smarter is due to the potential many organizations see in how it can offload tedious tasks for clinicians, as well as automate tasks that require human intervention.
In his sixth annual list of healthcare predictions for the year ahead, Rod Hochman, MD, president and CEO of Renton, Wash.-based Providence also touched on AI.
Dr. Hochman said generative AI "will be fast-paced and ubiquitous," resulting in innovative partnerships and a new era of healthcare transformation in 2024.