C-suite surveyors: AI ‘continues to excite healthcare leaders’

AI and patient care are “top of mind” for healthcare executives in 2024. The pairing seems opportune, since the surveyed leaders see the burgeoning technology as a key tool for improving the perennial mission.

This is one takeaway to be inferred from the latest annual “Top of Mind for Top Health Systems” survey conducted for the Center for Connected Medicine at UPMC in Pittsburgh.

Produced in partnership with KLAS Research, the survey report shows 55 respondents participated. Some 93% of these were C-level or suite-adjacent executives. The remaining 7% were directors or managers. 

The report offers three observations with explanations. Here’s a summary.

1. AI continues to excite healthcare leaders.

For the fourth year in a row, healthcare executives identified AI as the most exciting emerging technology for their sector, the authors note. AI was cited by 85% of respondents, suggesting widespread belief that “AI has significant potential to improve administration, operations, clinical care and other areas of healthcare.” More:  

‘While healthcare leaders have concerns about AI security and governance, they recognize the potential for natural language processing, large language models, generative AI and other applications to significantly aid their organizations in realizing positive outcomes for patients, providers and operations. As AI becomes more accessible, reliable, and cost-effective, leaders are trying to identify AI use cases that could transform the industry.’

2. Health system leaders recognize recent improvements in AI models.

Respondents named AI the technology showing the most improvement for the second year in a row, UPMC reports. Executives noted improvement in large language models and generative AI used to augment care delivery and efficiency. More:

‘Though ambient speech and other documentation solutions have been available for several years, the propagation of generative AI in healthcare has led to more organizations leveraging the technology to try to decrease clinician burnout, decrease cost, automate administrative tasks, and increase patient satisfaction and engagement.’

3. Leaders believe that some common challenges—not least patient care, patient access and provider burnout—are best solved with technology.

Ambient speech technology is one solution being used to address these kinds of problems, the authors point out. While many reported challenges have remained the same over the last year, they add, many organizations have “shifted or split their focus to operational challenges, including efficiency, profit margins and staffing.” More:  

‘Another challenge, data aggregation and analytics, involves addressing the problem of siloed data that is not easily available in digestible formats for clinical care. This frustration is likely amplified due to increased desire to implement AI solutions, which first require a strong data aggregation/analytics base.’

The authors comment that the acceleration of AI into the public consciousness following ChatGPT’s splashy introduction in late 2022 “is a very real and potentially game-changing technology for many industries”—including healthcare.

The report at hand is titled “Leaders Hoping to Expand AI Use Cases in 2024-25.” Download it and related resources from UPMC’s Center for Connected Medicine here.