Artificial intelligence is at work everywhere across healthcare these days, from small-bore pilot projects to big implementations designed to nudge enterprise-wide improvements. But as hospitals and health systems pursue AI initiatives in earnest, many of them are still often flying blind.
They understand AI’s transformative potential – and hopefully also grasp the risks of model deployments that aren’t properly calibrated – but may still not be pursuing their projects with purpose.
There are plenty of roadmaps and implementation guides out there, designed to help shape an organization’s AI journey. (The HIMSS Analytics Maturity Assessment Model is an especially valuable tool.) But they don’t replace the hard work that has to be done in-house to achieve real and lasting value from AI.
To truly realize clinical, financial and operational ROI – at scale – from artificial intelligence and machine learning investments, healthcare organizations must put in the effort: crafting strategic plans to achieve carefully defined goals, empowering the right leaders, getting buy-in from staff and much more.
In his opening keynote at next month’s HIMSS AI in Healthcare Forum, which is scheduled for July 10-11 in Brooklyn, Tom Lawry, Managing Director of Second Century Tech and a former health AI leader at Microsoft, will offer some insights into what makes successful deployments tick.
Lawry’s “hype-busting” presentation, “From FOMO to Foresight – Creating AI Value at Scale” – will discuss AI leadership strategy and define the key factors health system leaders should be attuned to as they put AI to work.
He’ll describe how IT leaders and others in the C-suite should prioritize coherent but scalable AI initiatives that transcend scattershot pilot projects and focus on system-wide efficiencies. He’ll discuss strategies and practical approaches to overcoming some common challenges, such as workforce readiness, ethical considerations and more.
And he’ll offer a vision for how to foster a “culture of innovation” that treats AI as something to be tightly integrated into processes system-wide to promote continuous improvement, quality enhancement and operational efficiencies.
For our recent Q&A with Lawry we started by asking him a question we’d previously asked. If we know “FOMO” is not a good reason to invest in AI for the sake of it, might there be some cases where it’s just not a good fit?
Are there some cases where it might just make sense, for reasons of resources, workforce, culture or other inherent challenges? Or should every healthcare organization be investing in AI, no matter their situation?
“The short answer is yes,” says Lawry. “Why? Because it’s the future. And if you don’t, you’ll be left behind. But the broader answer is you should be doing it for reasons of how it supports your mission, your clinical and business goals.”
Still, in many healthcare organizations today, big money is being spent on AI without clear and measurable KPIs and a plan for what success is meant to achieve.
“There’s a lot of data that suggests the majority of AI investments being made across all sectors has been less about being grounded in business planning and more about fear of missing out. [Health systems] don’t want to get left behind.”
But some C-suites are thinking more concretely about where they want their AI investments to take them.
“We’re at a point where the smart leaders are starting to move towards creating processes, forcing a discipline to say ‘We have to move beyond the hype and have some line of sight on how we’re going to get return on value.’
“Everyone talks about return on investment,” he adds. “I like to talk about return on value, which is a little different.”
Sure, there are ways you can measurably improve something to increase revenue, and to decrease costs. But just as important, if not moreso, are the process improvements that may be more nuanced, like reducing the number of highly repetitive or redundant tasks that must be performed by highly skilled and highly paid doctors and nurses, Lawry explains.
“I can’t put a direct return on investment on that. But if I can somehow show I’m reducing that stress, this causes burnout, and then that’s a pretty good measure.”
AI has been around for decades, but in just the past few years it suddenly seems that nearly every healthcare organization in America is using AI, says Lawry. Still, too few of them are really “driving measurable value at scale across the enterprise.”
The HIMSS AI in Healthcare Forum is scheduled to take place July 10-11 in Brooklyn. Learn more and register.
Mike Miliard is executive editor of Healthcare IT News
Email the writer: [email protected]
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication.
