Moving Beyond the AI Hype

The panel also will take a hard look at another question that is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: What’s real?

Tyson Blauer, senior insights director at KLAS, raised the issue of the enormous amount of AI hype surrounding healthcare right now. There is no shortage of stories about what AI could do. But what are health systems actually doing with it, and what is genuinely moving the needle?

His comments dovetailed nicely with another theme that came up repeatedly in our conversation: ROI.

Allie Lutin, senior product marketing manager at CallRail, talked about everything from faster data capture to patient engagement and value realization. The question is no longer simply whether AI can do something. It is whether doing it actually produces a meaningful outcome. That may sound obvious, but it represents an important shift in the way healthcare organizations are approaching AI.

We’ve spent the past couple of years hearing a lot about the need to move quickly. Now organizations are asking harder questions: What are we building? What problem are we solving? What outcome are we trying to achieve? And is AI actually the best way to get there?

Adam Cherrington, founder of Aligned Health Advisory, who will moderate the panel, put it in wonderfully simple terms: “You don’t buy a hammer to hit something. You buy a hammer to build something. So what are you building?”

I think that is a pretty good description of where healthcare is with AI right now.

Maybe We Shouldn’t Automate Everything

Another idea from Tyson really caught my attention: Sometimes the answer isn't to automate a broken process.

Prior authorization is a good example. Healthcare has spent years trying to make an incredibly cumbersome process more efficient. AI may help automate pieces of it. But perhaps the bigger question is whether we should be redesigning the process itself.

In other words, do we really need to automate prior authorization, or should we be asking whether there is a better way to deliver that part of healthcare in the first place? That gets to the heart of what makes this panel interesting to me. The conversation isn't just about deploying technology. It's about rethinking how healthcare is delivered.

The panelists also will explore what is happening with patient engagement, revenue cycle, data silos, interoperability, personalization and the growing number of AI solutions entering the market.

And there is a particularly interesting question on the horizon: What will we see more of over the next six to 12 months? 

Why I Think This Conversation Matters

What I appreciated most about our prep conversation was the shared desire to make this useful. Adam said early on that he wanted the panel to focus on solutions, ideas and wins, rather than simply spending 40 minutes talking about how hard healthcare is. That is exactly what I want all of our Summit sessions to do.

Healthcare leaders don't need another list of reasons why AI is complicated. They need to hear from people who are experimenting with it, implementing it, governing it, measuring it and, just as importantly, figuring out where it doesn't belong. That's the conversation we’re building for San Diego.

If you're attending the Healthcare Innovation San Diego Summit on Sept. 28, I hope you'll join us for “AI Innovations and Disruptors in Healthcare.” Bring your questions. The panelists have agreed that this will be an interactive conversation, with audience questions welcomed throughout the session.

I’m particularly eager to hear where these leaders think we’re making real progress, where we’re getting ahead of ourselves and what healthcare organizations should be doing now to prepare for what comes next.

Because AI isn't waiting for healthcare to have all the answers. The more important question now is whether we're building the right systems, safeguards and strategies to use it well.

Would you like to join the conversation? Click here to register for the San Diego Summit.