New research emerged Wednesday revealing how CIOs and other healthcare technology leaders feel about AI deployment.
The survey — which was conducted by The Harris Poll and health data platform Arcadia — was based on responses from 102 leaders (director title and above) at provider organizations who are involved in data analytics, information systems and software integration. It found that 96% of respondents believe that effectively leveraging AI gives healthcare providers a competitive edge.
More than 60% of respondents said AI can analyze large patient datasets to identify trends and inform population health intervention strategies. For example, AI can monitor the most common reasons causing patients to seek care at emergency rooms in various regions, analyze this data for trends, and then provide an early alert flagging when there may be spikes in diseases such as new variants of the flu or Covid-19, explained Arcadia CEO Michael Meucci.
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“AI can also connect dots, such as the number of patients diagnosed with a specific cancer in a similar geography, and correlate that with media coverage from that region to identify that there was an environmental event that could increase the risk of developing cancer. With that information, healthcare providers can launch a large-scale education and screening program,” he added.
The research also found that nearly half of respondents think AI can optimize the management and analysis of the EHR.
Care teams are stretched thin and usually don’t have the time to review every piece of data in a patient’s chart, Meucci pointed out. By using AI tools, clinicians can quickly comb through piles of documentation to surface actionable insights, such as recommended next steps for a specific patient encounter, he noted.
AI can analyze individual patient data much faster than a human can, which means that it sometimes notices a potential care gap or undiagnosed condition more promptly than a clinician would, Meucci said.
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“For example, dense and complex medical records can exceed thousands of characters of text. AI brings the ability to quickly analyze that information to enable providers to spend less time on manual, administrative tasks and more time delivering high-quality patient care.” he explained.
Even though the majority of healthcare technology leaders believe AI would improve efficiency at their organizations, some still face barriers to adoption, the report noted.
The research found that the three biggest challenges healthcare technology leaders face when it comes to implementing AI is the lack of the right talent to facilitate adoption (40%), limited organizational experience with AI (39%), and concerns about ethics, privacy and security (35%).
The role of health IT leaders is quickly evolving to focus more on shaping strategy, Meucci noted. In turn, employee skillsets must evolve too.
More than 70% of survey respondents want employees with data-driven decision-making skills. A majority of respondents also want the members of their team to have skill sets involving data analysis, machine learning and systems integration, the report showed.
“While there is certainly a shift in the workforce’s needs and expectations, there are also new opportunities for employees. Our report found that 93% of IT decision-makers believe that the adoption of AI will empower teams to focus on more intricate dimensions of their job responsibilities, and 96% believe the adoption of AI will drive workforce satisfaction by alleviating burdens from mundane tasks,” Meucci said.
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