AI was the dominant theme at last week’s Vive Conference in Nashville. Dozens of companies launched new AI solutions at events, and experts spoke about the technology during most panel sessions. Of course, AI was the point of my frequent discussions in interviews and conversations.
The leader I spoke to agreed that healthcare AI is rapidly developing and that the industry’s attitudes toward how to maximize regulation and deployment of this technology are evolving every day.
They also agreed that AI will clearly play a major role in providing care for many years to come. One factor that demonstrates this is the fact that Med Tech giants such as Epic were extremely agile in their efforts to release AI, said CIO Scott Arnold and Innovation Chiefs at Tampa General Hospital.
“The Epics of the World – They’re moving artificial intelligence very quickly, and traditionally they were about four to five years behind where we needed it. Some of our big partners It was really interesting to see it working like that. GE, Phillips, they’re all putting AI in firmware for diagnostic equipment. They say something was wrong before it didn’t work. We do everything we can to tell us we are there, Arnold declared.
Healthcare providers are also growing more comfortably in their AI model testing and scaling efforts, notes Simon Nazarian, Chief Digital and Technology Officer at City of Hope.
AI tools are not considered shiny, unconventional objects in the healthcare world, he said.
Nazarian highlighted the trends of providers increasingly focused on AI applicability.
His colleagues, Nasim Eftekhari, executive director of Applied AI and Data Science City of Hope, added that healthcare providers are increasingly interested in Agent AI.
Last year, at this point, many conversations about healthcare AI, centered around generation AI and large-scale language models – now more and more leaders discuss how to apply AI agents to automate tasks Eftekhari says.
As healthcare providers continue their efforts to deploy AI, “The most difficult thing is to separate wheat from their shells,” said John Halamka, president of Mayo Clinic Platform, another expert.
He pointed out that startups in the healthcare AI space that sell point solutions will be much more difficult to thrive as these organizations are looking for solutions with more discerning eyes.
“Is there only one platform that controls them all? The answer is no, but there are probably categories. And our challenges now are that each one has a niche disease, problem, or function. It is to have a 1000 point solution to solve. It is not something that a CIO is likely to buy. Where is the differentiated product? Where does this serve as a platform for categories or features? ” Haramka explained.
These questions have not been answered yet, but AI development in healthcare use cases shows no signs of slowing down, according to Anesh Chopra, chief strategy officer at Arcadia.
Responsible ethical AI remains an important priority for the healthcare sector, but changes in the presidential administration could replace a faster pace of innovation, he said.
“I think the change in tone from the administration gives stakeholders a little more comfort. If we take responsibility for ourselves, we can move a little faster in a more autonomous, more responsible way. Maybe we can. We feel the gas pedals are pushing a little more towards adoption in healthcare,” declared Chopra.
Photo: Mr.Cole_Photographer, Getty Images
