The conversation around AI in healthcare is largely focused on speed — how burdensome processes like prior authorizations, claims reviews, patient referrals, endless documentation, drug discovery, FDA submissions and so on can be sped up.
But what if AI’s biggest contribution to healthcare went beyond simply asking it to complete the same tasks in less time?
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That’s the question behind Anterior’s Beyond Faster Horses campaign that launched recently. The five-part initiative led by the New York-based clinical AI company brings together leaders from across healthcare to imagine what healthcare might look like if the industry stopped using AI simply to accelerate existing processes and instead built an AI-native health plan from the ground up.
“…We would be disappointed if, five years from now, clinical AI’s greatest achievement was getting through the same paperwork in half the time. We can ask more of this technology,” wrote three of Anterior’s leaders – Abdel Mahmoud, Tahseen Omar, and Ali Khan – in an open letter on the campaign’s website. “Clinical AI could take on much of the work that keeps people occupied with the machinery of care, and give them more time for care. That would be an extraordinary thing to get right.”
The campaign brings together key leaders across healthcare with the goal of inspiring a broader change in how AI is used to transform care delivery – one that keeps human-led care at the center. In a Q&A for the Beyond Faster Horses campaign, David J. Shulkin, former U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs, says that shift looks like centering patients rather than providers or payers, as well as making healthcare more accessible and personalized. He argues for reduced complexity in the system overall, and financial incentives which align with better health outcomes. He believes that AI could help to narrow the knowledge gap between providers, payers, and patients, allowing for more collaborative care.
Shulkin asserts that the current system is not sustainable, and that AI should be helping to transform healthcare into a more patient-centric system centered on improving quality of life. Rather than focusing on simple administrative speed, he argues that healthcare AI should be used to overhaul the care model itself, with a focus on making healthcare more equitable and accessible.
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“The greatest opportunity for AI will be to move healthcare from reactive, episodic, institution-centered care to continuous, predictive, personalized care,” Shulkin said in an email to MedCity News. “AI can democratize access to clinical expertise, identify illness before symptoms develop, and bring comprehensive care into patients’ homes.”
Achieving that requires more than simply deploying more AI tools and developing increasingly capable algorithms. Shulkin argues that the same monitoring be applied to emerging AI applications as are enforced with any other new medical treatment, with a dogged emphasis on transparency, independent performance validation, and continuous monitoring after deployment.
“When new medications are being introduced to the market, we require that there be safety monitoring and real world evidence. We shouldn’t accept a different standard for AI,” Shulkin said.
This monitoring should be proportionate to the consequences of the AI application in question, Shulkin suggests. An AI tool which simply manages scheduling does not need the same scrutiny as one which is involved in determining something highly impactful, such as treatment eligibility.
The Beyond Faster Horses campaign asks healthcare leaders and decision-makers to re-consider how AI could be used. Is the best goal simply to accelerate the inner workings of today’s fragmented and inefficient system? The leaders involved in the campaign believe that instead, AI should be used to build a better system entirely – one which delivers care in fundamentally different ways.
“I believe we fundamentally need to redesign how care is organized, delivered, and paid for, Shulkin said. “Getting there requires alignment by providers that must redesign clinical care; technology companies that must build interoperable systems; payers that must reward better outcomes rather than more services; and policymakers that must establish common standards and incentives.”
Photo: imaginima, Getty Images