Four Key Areas For Chief AI Officers In Healthcare To Focus On
The impacts of AI are well-documented, vast and ever-changing. What once was feared as a replacement for jobs has led to various ways to perform existing roles more efficiently and created budding new professional opportunities across sectors and industries.
In healthcare, the presence of AI is clearly evident. From optimizing data processing, enhancing patient experience and aiding in medical evaluation and diagnosing, the uses of AI are continuously being tested and expanded.
At the forefront of AI’s revolution in healthcare is a new executive in the C-suite: the chief AI officer. As this role takes shape, healthcare leaders should be looking closely at the ways AI can be harnessed to responsibly drive patient satisfaction and business objectives.
Here are four objectives chief AI officers should focus on as part of their scope.
1. Safeguarding Technological Implementation
While AI is instrumental for its processing and data mining abilities, not all AI technology is created equal. As the race to create newer, faster and better models continues, chief AI officers must safeguard the tools healthcare professionals rely on in daily practice.
For the chief AI officer, understanding not just what the technology can do, but how it works and its ability to accurately perform the tasks it was designed to, is critical. The chief AI officer needs to be equipped with the medical know-how and the technical knowledge to ask the right questions and evaluate if the technology is safe, properly tested, free of bias and correct in its data analysis.
2. Bolstering Data Security
Cyber threats in healthcare are growing — and becoming more complex each day. The recent attack against Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago that led to system outages is an example of the crippling implications cybersecurity breaches can have on healthcare systems.
Data security is a cornerstone of healthcare. It fosters trust and credibility with patients and is critical to the ongoing operations of every hospital, urgent care and physician’s office across the globe. It is also part of the pillar of ethics and compliance that healthcare systems stand on.
Threats to AI models go beyond traditional cybersecurity attacks of hackers trying to extract information. Attacks that exploit vulnerabilities in machine learning mechanisms and result in outputting inaccuracies, data leakages and incorrect classifications are all very real hazards of AI technology. Chief AI officers need to understand the weaknesses of their technology and put checks and balances in place to recognize and mitigate potential threats.
3. Diagnosing The Future Of Healthcare
Healthcare systems are vast labyrinths that house the clues to how healthcare will continue to evolve.
Similar to AI models used in diagnosing that comb through thousands of data sets to quickly identify abnormalities, this technology can also be used to pinpoint trends in how healthy patients are, the services they are utilizing, the ailments they suffer from and how they are interacting with medical professionals.
With this data, healthcare executives can engage in forecasting and decision-making for the longevity of their operations and to proactively and holistically approach the healthcare system.
4. Streamlining Back-End Office Tasks
From saving time to minimizing errors and staying on top of patient communication — a key element of patient satisfaction — chief AI officers should be guiding the ways technology can streamline and automate routine tasks. Through harnessing robotic process automation (RPA), organizations can see significant cost-savings, increases in claims processing, decreases in process times and more.
Opportunities to incorporate AI into daily administrative tasks include:
Processing insurance claims.
Assigning medical and billing codes.
Scheduling appointments and coordinating patient reminders/follow-ups.
Streamlining employee scheduling.
Managing compliance regulation.
As the chief AI officer role — and the technology this position oversees — continue to evolve, new ways of improving patient care and satisfaction, creating cost savings and driving efficiencies will reveal themselves. Chief AI officers will hold the responsibility of thoughtfully guiding AI’s implementation across the healthcare spectrum.