Drowning in data? Healthcare teams use AI to turn information into impact.
AI is moving into the healthcare management at a rapid pace, as healthcare executives look for ways to apply the technology to care pathways both inside and outside the hospital room.
In this week’s The Winning Edge webinar, sponsored by Lightbeam Health Solutions, executives from Saint Peter’s Healthcare System in New Jersey and OSF HealthCare in Illinois discussed how they’re using AI to improve care delivery. This includes:
- Using the technology to draw from disparate and often siloed data sources and create a complete patient care record for nurses and doctors, giving them ideas on future treatments and improving handoffs to other care team members;
- Using ambient technology to record conversations between patients and their care team in the hospital room, sifting through the details to enter relevant data into the EMR; and
- Integrating AI with video technology to monitor patients, especially when no one else is in the room, reducing patient falls and alerting care team members if someone shows signs of physical or mental distress.
Michael Wells, president of OSF HealthCare’s Saint Francis Medical Center, says the technology, while still in its earlier stages in clinical care, offers opportunities for care teams to gather and process large amounts of data more quickly, helping to fine-tune nursing workflows and improve bedside care.
Ishani Ved, MHA, CPHQ, FHELA, director of transformational population health and outcomes at New Jersey-based Saint Peter’s, sees the benefits from a population health angle. AI, she says, can address care gaps caused by social determinants of health, giving providers insights into barriers and offering recommendations on care pathways.
For example, she says, AI might better identify patients who have transportation problems and need help getting to and from the hospital or doctor’s office. Or the technology could identify environmental hazards for patients with chronic conditions, such as air quality concerns for those with asthma or COPD, and help clinicians devise care plans that can address those hazards.
The key, both executives said, is in integrating the technology with current workflows and giving clinicians the support and education they need to use AI. That might mean pointing out to reluctant doctors and nurses how AI gives them important data and insights at the point of care, or, as Wells pointed out, sometimes reining in over-enthusiastic clinicians who have seen how AI works and want to move more quickly than standards or guidelines dictate.
As Danielle Bergman, MSN, APRN, FNP-BC, AVP of clinical development at Lightbeam Health Solutions, noted, AI has the potential to “offload mental bandwidth” for clinicians, allowing them to prioritize their time, giving them the tools to know what actions to take, enabling them to see which patients need more attention sooner, and identifying at-risk populations and events.
Transparency, Reliability, And That Ever-Elusive ROI
In care management, AI tools are only as good as the data they use. And that means making sure governance and continuous monitoring have high priority.
For Ved, that means making sure AI tools are kept up to date with the latest data, so that the insights they provide accurately reflect the populations they’re addressing. Health system and hospital leaders not only need to check the data (or, if working with a vendor, meet often to discuss data quality) but ensure that both patients and clinicians see that transparency.
Both Ved and Wells noted that as AI integrates into clinical care, the idea that the technology must produce a financial return on investment will grow fuzzy. That’s because benefits like improved clinical outcomes, better workflows and reduced provider stress and burnout don’t always show clear monetary results. And that’s where the industry’s move towards value-based care will help develop new definitions of ROI.
Ved points out that population health isn’t always about profit but more about outcomes – it won’t make money for hospitals, but it will save money in reduced expenses, from better healthcare management that reduces adverse health events like ED visits and hospital stays, to more proactive care that curbs chronic and preventable health concerns.
Wells says AI improves efficiency, which has clear financial benefits when a health system or hospital can reduce hospital stays, opening up beds for more patients in need of care and enabling more timely procedures and surgeries. At the same time is frees up clinicians to be better caregivers, reducing the stress around repetitive administrative tasks and helping executives manage their workforce.
Both see AI developing into a clinical decision support tool, not only giving clinicians the date they need for helping to point them in the right direction on treatment. As well, it will give consumers the insight they need to live healthier lives, empowering them to make better decisions and to have more valuable interactions with their doctors and nurses.
Eric Wicklund is the associate content manager and senior editor for Innovation at HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Healthcare organizations are rapidly embracing AI as a care management tool, but need to make sure the technology is transparent and the data is reliable.
AI can improve clinical workflows by taking out repetitive and administrative tasks that take clinicians away from their patients.
The key to integrating AI into care management is to make the technology unobtrusive, giving clinicians insights and information at the point of care.