How Healthcare AI's Early Wins Can Have A Lasting Impact

Dr. Paige Kilian, Chief Medical Officer at Inovalon, bridges clinical medicine and data analytics to improve real-world healthcare outcomes.

Everyone is trying to forecast AI’s effects on healthcare. Some believe it will finally free medical professionals from mundane administrative tasks so they can spend more time with patients.

Others worry it will erode the hands-on expertise required to deliver comprehensive, compassionate medical care. As AI creates the illusion of an easy approach to diagnosis, physicians will have fewer opportunities to learn by experience, potentially causing overreliance on technology at the expense of patient outcomes. Autopilot could not have landed Captain Sully’s plane.

Neither reflects what’s happening in most encounters today. Right now, physicians are overloaded with nonclinical tasks, patients are waiting too long for care and the playing field continues shifting as more regulations are announced and new technologies enter this space.

Fortunately, there are clear examples of AI catalyzing the change healthcare has long needed. I’ve observed them in my own day-to-day work. Models have produced exciting wins in taking on time-consuming, tedious tasks to help skilled experts make patient encounters more meaningful and, in some areas, produce better outcomes. AI scribes and other ambient documentation tools are giving physicians back time to focus on patients, and AI-based alerts are catching patient safety risks earlier.

The challenge is embracing innovation while preserving the art of taking the patient’s history, factoring in the nuance of expression and inflection and performing a solid physical exam; AI disruption has to happen in parallel to continued medical learning.

New Hope For Overburdened Physicians

Forty-two percent of physicians report experiencing burnout, with administrative work as a primary contributor, a top reason why many physicians, nurses and pharmacists are leaving their professions.