Three healthcare executives deploying AI minds are the most important
AI has become an important part of the healthcare workplace, from environmental subscription tools to clinical decision support. However, healthcare workers are still learning best practices when it comes to leveraging AI.
During a panel discussion at the Medcity Invest Digital Health conference in Dallas Thursday, three healthcare executives shared their most important ideas as they roll out their AI products in the workplace. Keith J. Figlioli, managing partner of LRVHealth, chaired the meeting.
For an executive, adopting AI tools is key. But to adopt these tools, according to Dr. Steve Miff, president and CEO of Parkland Clinical Innovation Center, workers must trust them. To build trust, a strong evaluation framework is needed for AI. He said the tools “can’t be black boxes”, so it’s crucial to provide “the insights and other real-time information behind these outputs and algorithms”. In addition, monitoring of automated AI models is crucial.
“Once you open the door, you’ll end up doing it with dozens of different AI models, and the question I asked is, ‘How will I keep up with consistent monitoring as an organization?’ So we’ve been focusing on developing algorithms and methods to actually be able to monitor the performance of these models in real time, which actually builds trust with the team, knowing that someone or a group are constantly looking at these models and reminding if something is off track,” he said.
He added that among the frontline staff, there is still a concern that AI will cause them to lose their jobs, so there is often “resistance” when new tools are introduced.
Jess Botros, a healthcare executive – Vice President of IT Strategy and Operations at Ardent Health, noted that she hopes clinicians in the system will be able to spend as much time with patients as possible and have the right tools. That is, there are many responsibilities in deploying AI.
“To do this the right way, you have to rely on the house from a data perspective from a trust perspective,” she said. “You think about the impact of change management and make sure people are really with the ride and really understand why we are doing something. It becomes very important.”
Meanwhile, Abhinav Shashank, CEO and co-founder of Innovaccer, stressed the importance of interoperability. The healthcare industry should be committed to connecting existing systems with building new systems. He stressed that many of the biggest challenges of healthcare, such as claim handling and transition to value-based care, stem from the rupture of information traffic.
“Great software will be built throughout the United States and the work we need to do is create a system that connects these contents and makes them really work together. … I just think [that] If we work these things together, we're going to be much better where we're basically trying to get 20 new things. ” he said.
