As artificial intelligence proliferates, many companies — including health systems — have been naming chief AI officers to oversee the new technology.
Sachin Jain, MD, president and CEO of Scan Group and Health Plan, recently posed the question on LinkedIn: If you were hiring a chief AI officer, what would you have that person do?
Here are some of the responses from healthcare leaders:
"Why not just ask an AI? Here's what ChatGPT said," wrote Saad Chaudhry, chief digital and information officer of Annapolis, Md.-based Luminis Health, before posting the AI chatbot's response: "The CAIO's role is to strategically drive the thoughtful use of AI in healthcare, ensuring its impact aligns with the company's objectives while upholding ethical standards and regulatory requirements."
"In my view this person is someone who can accelerate workforce transformation … hiring technology, robotics, and tech-savvy people to get jobs done," wrote Serrah Linares, senior vice president of partnerships at Optum.
"I would consider this role as an independent member of the C suite … or blend its responsibilities with a more traditional CDO role. I would have them focus on not only the predictive analytics part but laying a foundation for how AI will be used, evaluated and rolled out at enterprise scale across your org. … From a boundaries standpoint, I would consider letting that naturally hit but you may find overlap and conflict with the CIO and CDO roles, so working out some rules of the road upfront would be good. I caution being too rigid in this though. You want ideas and try/fail to flow. I would also have them focus on building a team to meet the strategy as well as how AI fits into a multicloud strategy," wrote Brian Norris, a consultant and former chief nursing informatics officer at Indianapolis-based IU Health.
"How can we be creative and mindful at mapping the overlap with existing C-suite roles including CDO and its scope for current and future digital transformation while not adding operating cost to the organization? What would the new technology, new roles, new operational org charts … contribute that will be purposeful to reduce waste, improve efficiency and quality of current healthcare deliveries? How would we all not run after a new shiny innovation like in the past that did not improve access to health, life expectancy, equity, while not reducing the cost of US healthcare? How can we remember that a lot of healthcare is also common sense and streamlined practicality ?" wrote Sejal Shah, senior consultant for strategic deployment at Sacramento-based UC Davis Health.