AI is fundamentally changing the healthcare landscape. AI tools can assist with early diagnosis of disease, EHR management, detection of clinical conditions, medication development, and more. They can pull from various data types, such as biomedical, clinical, behavioral, and research information. AI opens an opportunity for patient diagnosis in a truly empirical way, unhampered by implicit biases on the part of providers. All these impacts from AI create a paradigm shift in how healthcare is coordinated, administrated, and carried out for patients, but what does this shift mean for healthcare leaders, particularly in IT?

Expect to see the cycle of science move faster

When AI makes it easier to diagnose, conduct research, and publish findings, the cycle of science in the medical field will start moving faster than in decades past. A great example is the COVID-19 pandemic, where we saw research move at lightning speed in real-time, with AI models enabling emerging research to flow as scientists and doctors studied and learned more about the disease.

AI is also helpful in researching things like cancer, and more discoveries may be able to be made when AI tools are doing the heavy lifting for analysis. This impacts your healthcare organization because you will have to stay on top of these new developments—it could be a matter of life or death for your patients.

Be prepared for more complex vulnerabilities

AI is a fantastic tool, but tools can be catastrophic when used in the wrong hands. Just like how AI is making strides in the medical field, it is also making strides in the field of information technology, and if your IT team has access to great AI tools, so do the hackers. Make sure to support your IT team with the proper resources so that they can protect your organization against cyber threats, especially complex threats driven by AI.

Now more than ever, information is the most valuable thing your organization possesses, and data loss is not only socially devastating but can cause major problems when it comes to HIPAA compliance.

Buckle down on information security

Make sure to provide information security training for your employees and emphasize the proper use of AI. If you haven't developed an AI usage section in your employee handbook, now is the time. Emphasize to your employees that PHI should never be handed to a generative AI engine like ChatGPT—including to analyze reports.

Additionally, it is important to scrutinize and vet AI tools that get incorporated into your organization. Read the fine print about data privacy, and make sure that your IT team is prepared with the appropriate network protocols to integrate the tool into your organization's environment safely.

Prepare for how AI will impact your workforce needs

You've probably heard lots of hubbub online about how people will have to compete with AI for jobs. While AI may eliminate certain types or quantities of positions, it certainly won't eliminate jobs entirely. As AI makes managing your EHR system easier, for instance, you will still need to train knowledge workers on the system and the AI to monitor it for errors and compliance with privacy regulations.

Additionally, because of the impact AI will have on providers, who may find themselves less bogged down with more menial tasks like charting, you may find that you can provide a better quality of care to your patients because your providers' time is less divided. As AI solutions roll out, you could consider using it as an opportunity to invest in educational enhancement for your medical team, such as cultural training to better provide for the specific populations you serve.

As we continue to learn more about how AI will impact the healthcare industry and the world beyond it, it's important to take a sober perspective and approach the issue shrewdly. There are amazing advantages to using AI in healthcare, but there can also be damaging disadvantages. AI bias, increased vulnerability, and potential data leaks are all risks of AI usage. But you can also get powerful reporting, innovative data analysis, and increased support for patient care. Regardless of where you stand on AI, it is not going anywhere, and healthcare will stand to benefit from it. AI is a powerful tool—it's important that you know how to use it.

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