A THOUGHT LEADERSHIP ROUNDTABLE

The future of artificial intelligence:
What will it take to revolutionize clinical care?

INTRODUCTION
In addition to Andy Zook, VP atInterSystems and moderator
Russ Branzell, President andCEO of CHIME, roundtableparticipants included:
Scott MacLean
Senior VP and CIO
Medstar HealthAaron Miri
Senior VP and CD&IO
Baptist Healthcare System
Mark Clark
VP of Information Technology
UCHealth
Pete Daddio
Director of Technology
Moffitt Cancer Center
Debra CarpenterCIO
TriState Health
Pankaj Chordia
Director, Network of Care
Stanford Healthcare
Yuri Campbell
Senior Director of Clinical
Solutions Delivery
WellMed Medical Management,
Optum South Region
A Senior VP and CIO at amajor children’s hospital in
the NortheastPuneet Singh
Administrative Director ofClinical Operations
Stanford Healthcareintersystems.com

Artificial intelligence (AI) is speeding along at an unprecedented rate, andhealthcare systems across the nation have eagerly strapped in for the ride.
Enthusiasm for AI-driven tools, inclMARuding generative AI applications,
has skyrocketed over the past several years, and it hasn’t taken long forthese models to find their way onto the front lines of clinical care.
But as with any exciting and promising technology, there are potential
bumps in the road ahead. Organizations must ensure they are leveraging
AI in the most appropriate use cases while paying close attention to safety,
reliability, and quality, especially as the ecosystem evolves around them.
Russell Branzell, President and CEO of CHIME, noted healthcare organizations
face accelerating costs and thin operating margins combined with a shifting
workforce — the next generations think, act, and work differently — andthe startling fact there not be enough human beings to take on the jobs
moving forward. “Between 8 and 15% of the U.S. workforce will disappear
in the next five years,” he cautioned. “Those who figure out how to use AIin this landscape will thrive, while those who don’t figure it out will not sotsurvive.”
For AI to truly revolutionize the delivery of healthcare, provider groups willneed to find the right balance between automating suitable tasks while still
keeping the heart and soul of the patient-provider relationship alive, saida panel of executive leaders in a recent Thought Leadership Roundtable
hosted by CHIME.
“Healthcare has the potential to be a showcase for how to do artificial
intelligence right,” asserted Andy Zook, VP at InterSystems, the sponsor
for the event.
“There are so many opportunities to automate things that should beautomated, but it’s equally crucial to keep humans in the loop with decisionmaking. We have the chance to be an example to other industries about
using AI for optimization without relinquishing the humanity and compassionthat make high-quality healthcare so impactful, because AI is going to be
one of those once-in-a-generation seismic shifts, just like the internet. It’stime to get ready for a new way of doing things, which is very exciting.”
Together, the executives tackled tough questions about how AI is going toshape the future of healthcare and what needs to be done to ensure thattechnology helps rather than hinders the next generation of clinical care.
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PERSPECTIVES ON AI IN THE HEALTHCARE ENVIRONMENT
Participants were generally optimistic about how the technology will fit into the real world of clinicalcare. While acknowledging the potential risks of getting it wrong, the executives unanimously believedthat AI is going to be a fact of life sooner rather than later, and the best approach is to embrace itwith an open mind and a clear plan.
“AI will enable us to transition repetitive, routine tasks that people do into something that a computercan do instead,” said Yuri Campbell, Senior Director of Clinical Solutions Delivery at Optum. “Since it’scoming whether we want it or not, we have to be very proactive about identifying where the risks lieand addressing them as safely as possible so we can leverage AI for its incredible opportunities.”
Scott MacLean, Senior VP and CIO at Medstar Health, echoed the sentiment of opportunity, emphasizing
the transformative potential of generative AI and the importance of embracing the AI revolution.
“We need to get on board,” he urged. “I’m optimistic about our ability to adapt and change to takeadvantage of what it has to offer.
Collaboration will be key to making AI work in clinical care, especially with so many new platforms,
models, and algorithms available to choose from, advised Pete Daddio, Director of Technology atMoffitt Cancer Center. “It’s so easy to get lost with when you’re feeling on your own with it.”To ensure the industry is successful with AI, it needs to be a co-journey with a very strong emphasison collaborative governance and shared best practices. “Then we can advance in a uniform mannerand learn from each other’s experiences to avoid duplicating efforts or fragmenting care,” Daddio
assured.

ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGES OF AI IN THE CLINICAL SETTING
Those are just a few of the potential problems that await if the industry does not align around bestpractices for AI implementation, the panel noted. Despite their enthusiasm for new approaches, all theparticipants are preparing for some level of disruption — an inevitable byproduct of change.
Trust emerged as a significant concern for healthcare leaders as they navigate the early stages of AI
adoption. Debra Carpenter, CIO at TriState Health, pointed to the novelty and perceived unreliabilityof AI as key factors contributing to this issue. She emphasized that organizations must proactively
address these concerns through a “concerted approach to change management, education, andthought leadership” to foster trust and acceptance among clinicians and staff. “It’s going to be anevolution,” she stated, underscoring the need for organizations to adapt and grow alongside thistrending technology.
There are growing concerns about AI replacing people in certain healthcare jobs. However, AI has
the potential to revolutionize the industry by taking over mundane tasks while allowing healthcare
professionals to focus on more complex and fulfilling aspects of their roles.
It’s important for organizations and leaders to find the right balance between AI and humans andmanage this AI infusion from a cultural and business perspective. This leadership is particularly crucial
in cases where automation will be disruptive to the traditional workflows and job descriptions of someroles.

A THOUGHT LEADERSHIP ROUNDTABLE

The future of artificial intelligence:
What will it take to revolutionize clinical care?
CHIMECENTRAL.ORG

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ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGES OF AI IN THE CLINICAL SETTING CONTINUED
Despite the potential operational efficiencies, healthcare organizations must be cautious about
viewing AI as a way to completely eliminate the burdens associated with existing workflows, advised
Aaron Miri, Senior VP and CD&IO at Baptist Healthcare System.
After implementing an EHR-generative AI integration in February to streamline communications withpatients, his team found that while the tool helpfully shifted some work away from physicians, it stillrequired significant investment from the IT staff.
The lesson is that AI can make some tasks easier, but it’s not burden-free for the organization.
For instance, Miri shared that a team had to constantly perform QA on the integrated tool due toconsistent hallucinations.
“There are issues with the responses sounding not quite right to humans, and challenges with keeping
qualified humans engaged in the right points of the conversation,” he noted. “We don’t want to create asituation where everything is so automated that the physicians end up not reading the communications
at all.”“We used to say it takes about
17 years to adopt a new clinicalbest practice; AI is moving thatneedle to the other extreme.
There are almost too many
good ideas, tools, and products
coming through the door now,and sometimes they cause
friction with one another.”Mark Clark
VP of Information TechnologyUCHealth

The take-home message here is that AI isn’t a magic bullet
for getting rid of work. “It can help redistribute work to makecertain functions more efficient, but there will always be acost involved,” Miri advised. “A lot of organizations don’t
think about that ongoing back-end investment enough, andit could be a problem for them down the line.”
Challenges are to be expected, especially with the sudden
explosion of generative AI, but there is excitement all overhealthcare that can drive great innovation if done right.
For instance, Mark Clark, VP of Information Technology atUCHealth, is excited about the potential for AI and believes
governance will be a key factor to addressing the pace ofchange that will become a disruption to traditional decisionmaking processes.
“We used to say it takes about 17 years to adopt a new clinicalbest practice; AI is moving that needle to the other extreme,”
he said. “There are almost too many good ideas, tools, andproducts coming through the door now, and sometimes theycause friction with one another.”

To avoid friction and bottlenecks, he recommended organizations develop a streamlined process formaking decisions, aimed at finding the solutions with the biggest benefits.
THE CRUCIAL ROLE OF GOVERNANCE IN AI IMPLEMENTATION
Overcoming the challenges will require organizations to focus sharply on governance throughout theAI lifecycle, from choosing the most appropriate tools and partners to conducting ongoing monitoring
for bias and outcomes.

A THOUGHT LEADERSHIP ROUNDTABLE

The future of artificial intelligence:
What will it take to revolutionize clinical care?
CHIMECENTRAL.ORG3THE CRUCIAL ROLE OF GOVERNANCE IN AI IMPLEMENTATION CONTINUED
Proper evaluation and governance of AI will be essential, especially since AI is on track to be as
ubiquitous as the cloud in just a few years. The panel agreed on the importance of taking the lessons
learned over the past decade about governance, security, data quality, and transparency and applying
them forward to AI over the next five years. In this way, it can become a normal industry practice torely on this technology for many different use cases.
At Stanford Healthcare, the advent of AI has led to a full reevaluation of the governance processes& structures to better position the organization for adoption, and the team has developed a testing& evaluation mechanism to identify Fair, Useful and Reliable (FURM) AI models, according to Puneet
Singh Waraich, Stanford’s Administrative Director of Clinical Applications.
“AI will require constant assessments and monitoring as we’re all still discovering where the tangible
value might lie, how best to harness it and what the associated long-term costs might be,” he continued.
“It also requires us to take a careful look at how our workflows interplay with AI (and vice-versa) andwhere potential unexpected impacts might occur via close monitoring well beyond go-lives, which isa different way of doing things than in the past. With AI, we have to be able to assess, deploy withsafety, monitor, (perhaps) fail fast and pivot quickly, and strong governance and oversight are key
to allowing that to happen.”
ENVISIONING AN AI-DRIVEN FUTURE FOR PERSON-CENTERED CLINICAL CARE
AI is already supporting astonishing breakthroughs inclinical care delivery, and it will only bring more benefits as
it matures and evolves over time, the attendees asserted.
Personalized medicine is one of the big promises ofintegrating AI and the clinical ecosystem. “We are going
to see a massive improvement in our ability to compare
treatments and outcomes across populations,” Carpenter
said, predicting AI will help change the trajectory of diseaseearlier in its development and identify the most effective
therapies for those who are already in a more advanced
state. “The impact on outcomes – and on overall spending– will be significant.”
Curing cancer has been elusive but is now on the table.
“It may not happen in this lifetime, but I am certain that
AI will play a big part in curing and/or preventing moretypes of cancer than we can imagine right now,” Daddio
said. “Predictive models are going to get so powerful andaccurate that we will get there, possibly a lot sooner than
we thought possible even five or ten years ago.”“It may not happen in thislifetime, but I am certain that
AI will play a big part in curing
and/or preventing more typesof cancer than we can imagine
right now. Predictive models
are going to get so powerful
and accurate that we will getthere, possibly a lot sooner
than we thought possible evenfive or ten years ago.”
Pete Daddio
Director of Technology
Moffitt Cancer Center

Despite such potential, industry leaders will need to invest in
developing shared best practices and guardrails to maximize the value of AI while avoiding the risks.

A THOUGHT LEADERSHIP ROUNDTABLE

The future of artificial intelligence:
What will it take to revolutionize clinical care?
CHIMECENTRAL.ORG

4

ENVISIONING AN AI-DRIVEN FUTURE FOR PERSON-CENTERED CLINICAL CARE CONTINUED
The path forward for AI in healthcare is paved with collaboration and shared learning. While eachorganization faces unique challenges, the underlying goal of improving patient care through innovativetechnology remains universal. A central conclusion of the roundtable discussion was that by uniting
around common standards and best practices, the industry can accelerate progress, minimize risks,and ensure that AI’s full potential is realized for the benefit of all.
KEY TAKEAWAYS•••••Embrace the inevitable: AI is here to stay, and healthcare organizations must proactively adapt
and embrace its potential to revolutionize care delivery.
Balance automation with humanity: While AI can automate routine tasks, maintaining the humantouch in patient-provider relationships is essential for optimal care.
Collaboration is key: Successful AI implementation requires strong partnerships between healthcareorganizations, technology vendors, and other stakeholders.
Governance is paramount: Robust governance frameworks are crucial for ensuring the safe,
ethical, and effective use of AI in clinical care.
Focus on outcomes: Ultimately, the goal of AI in healthcare is to improve patient outcomes andcreate a more efficient, sustainable system.

A THOUGHT LEADERSHIP ROUNDTABLE

The future of artificial intelligence:
What will it take to revolutionize clinical care?
CHIMECENTRAL.ORG5