What healthcare AI investors have been saying at HIMSS23

If great power obligates its wielder to exercise great responsibility, those advancing AI in healthcare are up to their necks in duty.

So suggests an investment professional whose venture-capital firm specializes in putting up big dollars to back early-stage innovators. The speaker, Holly Maloney of Cambridge, Mass.-based General Catalyst, spoke at HIMSS23, which closes in Chicago today. Here are three highlights as reported by HIMSS’s in-house news operation.

1. One of the reasons AI has been slow to catch on with patients, payers and providers is a lack of trust. AI has held promise to transform healthcare for the better part of a decade now, but adoption has lagged far behind the steady flow of research demonstrating its capabilities, Maloney noted. “We need to focus on building systems that are fair and inclusive, that are robust and reliable, that are private and secure and that are transparent and knowledgeable,” she added.  

2. As adoption expands, AI is likely to inject some unintended consequences into U.S. healthcare. Underscoring the criticality of anticipating the “What if’s” of AI in healthcare, Maloney advised thoughtful preparation. “The stakes are incredibly high,” she told attendees. “There is a tremendous amount of super private information that can be monetized in many ways and who will rise on the other side in terms of automation and care pathways.

3. Developers of emerging technologies presently rocking healthcare possess the potential to “drive incredible change, but with that ability you have great responsibility, especially as we get into the role of AI and automation,” Maloney said. “How do we take a system that is historically badly fragmented, super costly, more reactive into one that is truly focused on access, quality, lower cost and personalized proactive experiences?”

> In a separate HIMSS23 session featuring investors, panelists dished on ways they’ve adapted their funding strategies to ride out the present time of sluggish investment activity.

From HIMSS Media’s coverage of this discussion:

• “Valuations have corrected. They’ve come down. While this is good for investors, it's also good for startups. We’re seeing companies be a little more cash conscious, capital conscious and allocate capital better.”—Sonal Panda, Tau Ventures
• “When we look at the last two years, it feels a little sadder today than it did two years ago. When we look at the five-year, 10-year horizon, there has never been a better time to be investing in or building digital health technology and systems.”—Ben Wanamaker, Humana
• “It is certainly an investor-friendly environment. And it’s not to say that we'll take advantage of that, per se, but I think the entire reset brings us to more rational levels.” —Milind Parate, Northwell Holdings

For more HIMSS coverage of HIMSS23, click here.