How Memorial Healthcare System is utilizing AI

Memorial Healthcare System has embraced artificial intelligence carefully in some ways.

Jeff Sturman, senior vice president and chief digital information officer of Memorial Healthcare System, says the organization is taking a thoughtful approach in using AI.

“We are certainly leading in a lot of respects, but we are also a fast follower,” says Jeff Sturman, senior vice president and chief digital information officer of Memorial Healthcare System.

The Florida-based health system has been increasingly incorporating AI into its operations over the past few years. Sturman talked about Memorial’s use of AI and some lessons the system has learned in a recent interview with Chief Healthcare Executive®.

“I think we're being careful in how we use AI and certainly not jumping in with all our eggs in one basket,” he says. “We recognize that AI is an evolving thing and new to the industry and new to the world. And so we're testing things.”

“Certainly, we're being careful in terms of where there's good use cases, where there is a strategic need for the healthcare system,” he adds.

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Imaging and ambient listening

Sturman talks about using AI to solve specific problems and in areas where the technology is showing some maturity.

Memorial Healthcare System has partnered with Aidoc, a healthcare technology company with AI tools focused on imaging and radiology. Using Aidoc, the system is using AI to detect issues that could be undiagnosed. Sturman says the system is using AI technology to get “out in front of disease state.”

Patients may come in for a chest scan for suspicion of pneumonia, but the system is also using AI to look at a secondary diagnosis that could go relatively unnoticed, he says. The AI technology can identify lung nodules that could need to be watched, enabling clinicians to be more proactive, Sturman says.

The expanded use of AI in imaging allows for more efficiency, allowing providers to see more images during the course of day. “Our highest volume of appointments is imaging,” he notes.

Memorial Healthcare has also incorporated AI-powered ambient listening tools into the system, allowing providers to talk with patients without being hunched over a keyboard taking notes. Memorial is using Nuance’s Dragon Ambient eXperience (DAX) Copilot, and Sturman says the system is seeing impressive results. He said the DAX Copilot is proving to be “a game changer.”

“I'm actually both scared and really energized by it, because it's just so bizarre, even to a technology guy like me, in healthcare to see something that is working as well as it is,” he says with a laugh.

The DAX Copilot gives clinicians high-quality transcripts of patient visits, greatly reducing the time clinicians are spending on documentation. Physicians are spending “far less pajama time” on patient visits, he says.

“Providers are getting things done in a way that they're becoming more effective and efficient,” Sturman says. “They're seeing more patients. So they're creating more access, which is a huge problem in this country.”

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Engaging clinicians

At Memorial Healthcare, Sturman says he’s worked to enlist clinicians to be the champions of AI tools. He says that’s much more effective than a chief digital officer simply telling doctors they need to embrace the technology.

“That's not going to go anywhere,” he says. “That's not going to win the day. What's going to win the day is a bunch of providers telling other providers that actually they've seen some great benefit from the tools and the technology and the AI that they're all using.”

Memorial recently held a retreat for providers with a heavy focus on AI, which was aimed at highlighting its potential and also defusing some concerns.

“We’ve been very careful and focused on helping providers think about AI as one more way to become effective, become efficient, become more clinically and quality driven, so they're looking at it as another tool in their medical toolbox,” he says.

Sturman also makes clear that AI won’t be replacing the role of physicians. But he says he can see a time where clinicians are going to have to become more comfortable using AI tools to remain up to date.

“I don't think we're getting the sense from our providers that there's any shortage of work for them, and so whatever we can do to help them make their life a little bit easier and use AI to that advantage, seems like a good thing,” he says.

Memorial Healthcare has avoided creating a “separate” effort around AI, Sturman says, and he thinks that’s been the right strategy.

“We've really incorporated it into existing committees and structures of governance that we already have,” he says.

Currently, Memorial Healthcare doesn’t have a chief AI officer, a role some health systems have created in the past couple of years.

“We've been very sensitive by saying we're not doing that today,” he says. “That doesn't mean that we won’t evolve to that place in the future.”

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Improving the patient experience

Memorial Healthcare will look to use AI to improve the patient experience, including more AI-generated messaging for ways in which patients interact with providers, he says.

He also sees an important role for AI as hospitals make the shift to becoming health and wellness systems, and helping consumers be more proactive.

Sturman also points out that AI isn’t the answer to everything.

“We know it's not a silver bullet,” Sturman says. But he says it’s also important to leverage AI as a tool for “better quality, better safety, and better care.”

Sturman says hospitals shouldn’t employ AI solutions simply for the sake of using the technology.

Rather, healthcare leaders should be asking, “What is the problem that we're trying to solve?”

Sturman says the people that are delivering care need to be heavily involved in identifying the problems that need to be addressed.

He also cautions that without care, an AI solution isn’t guaranteed to succeed.

“You can still screw up an AI implementation, just like you'd screw up an EHR implementation if you don't get the right processes, project management, and people involved,” Sturman says.