AI in Healthcare 2020 Leadership Survey Report: Leveraging Intelligence to Enhance Care and Processes

Artificial and augmented intelligence are poised to revolutionize healthcare and medicine. Healthcare is being reshaped by new trusted data models enabled and inspired by AI that are starting to make an impact on what leaders say told us in this survey are their top priorities: Improving accuracy, efficiency and workflow.

Hospital systems, physicians, data scientists, IT and informatics leaders as well as industry are joining together to apply artificial intelligence and machine learning to some of the most intractable problems in healthcare. They are unpacking and unlocking data in an EMR, detecting brain bleeds in CT scans, atrial fibrillation in an ECG or cancer lesions via mammography or ultrasound, quantifying coronary artery calcifications in X-rays and recognizing patterns in coding to facilitate swift payment. AI will drive improvements in patient care because machine-optimized tasks will be automated as will workflow and workload be streamlined. Physicians will be able to visualize and interpret more data in greater depth than ever before. And as the U.S. FDA says, “AI and machine learning technologies have the potential to transform healthcare by deriving new and important insights from the vast amount of data generated during the delivery of healthcare every day.”

AI also is being applied behind the scenes to detect drug-drug interactions, predict which patients will decline in the ICU, those most at risk for readmissions or bed shortages in the ER. The mix of apps are both commercially developed and designed in house. FDA-approved apps have surged since the first, an Afib detector, got the nod in 2014.

The pace is picking up quickly, we learn from our survey of 1,238 healthcare leaders. Senior leadership are demonstrating ownership, commitments to and investments in AI initiatives. Healthcare is building a new paradigm that requires a new mindset and new infrastructure. Clinicians trust AI-generated insights, they are using AI for clinical tasks and business processes, they are developing and buying AI apps. 

With this survey we look at AI in healthcare through leaders’ eyes. What are their challenges and top priorities? What are they investing in and who is making it happen? Which ‘ologies are benefitting most? We look at all of this and more. Dig in, read on.