Mass General Brigham’s strategy is ‘enabled by AI’ | HIMSS 2026

Las Vegas - Mass General Brigham has taken a careful and thoughtful approach to AI, even as the system uses it more rapidly, Jane Moran says.

Moran is the chief information and digital officer of Mass General Brigham. In an interview with Chief Healthcare Executive® at the HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition, she talked about the ways the system is integrating AI.

“Our AI strategy is really our MGB strategy, enabled by AI,” Moran says. “So I think if there's a secret sauce, it's just really thinking about AI as a tool that enables business capability within the organization, and treating it as such.”

“I think our success has been to take a cautious approach around AI, to be thoughtful about the use cases,” she says.

Moran, who spoke at the conference, explains that the system is focusing on using AI to reduce the work of doctors, and to reduce the work for patients in getting to see them.

“We need to prioritize the patient and clinician experience as part of that process,” Moran says.

Helping physicians

Mass General Brigham has significantly expanded its use of ambient documentation, which utilizes AI technology to record and quickly summarize physician-patient conversations.

The pilot project began with a handful of doctors that wanted to try it, but within a couple of months, about 800 physicians were participating.

“What they found is that over time, the AI was getting better and better and better in terms of creating that clinician note,” Moran says. “There were small edits that had to be done because they review it before it actually gets sent to the patient. But the ultimate benefit was that our clinicians were reducing this administrative burden so they didn't have to type up their notes at the end of the day or Saturday morning.”

As a bonus, she says, “We were getting patient feedback that the patients appreciated having more face time with their clinicians.”

Now, about 4,000 clinicians across the health system are using ambient documentation. The system has found that using ambient documentation reduced the administrative time of doctors by 20%, Moran says.

While that process has proven successful in reducing the workload and stress of clinicians, Moran also says that drove more standardization in the governance process of AI. The system established an AI executive committee, including members of senior management. Mass General Brigham also formed an operating committee that looks at the safety and ethics of AI usage.

Expanding access

Mass General Brigham is also using AI to help patients find the right doctor. The system recently launched “Care Connect,” a program that helps patients set up virtual appointments with physicians. The system is partnering with K Health, a tech company, to operate the program. Moran says part of the reason for establishing Care Connect is the high demand for primary care.

K Health provides physicians for virtual appointments with patients, and the company also uses AI agents to help those patients get matched with a doctor.

“When the patient is signing up for a virtual care appointment, it helps triage their symptoms into diagnosis and find the right primary care physician to talk to. And so it speeds that process in terms of resolution for the patient,” Moran says.

The Care Connect program can help patients get an appointment in a brick-and-mortar facility if that’s what they want, but she says many are opting for virtual visits. And she says even some patients who have primary care doctors “are now using care connect on a regular basis because it's just more convenient.”

Moran sees the potential for AI tools to be expanded and used for referrals to expand access to clinicians. But she says the process is being done cautiously.

“We want to ensure that our patient data is secure, that when we do the triage, that there's no hallucination in the triage, and the only way you can do that is to ensure that your data, your source data, our patient data, is good,” she says.

Picking the right projects

As part of its approach to AI, Mass General Brigham is focusing on a select number of efforts to gauge their success, rather than launching scores of new programs.

“We can't work on every AI project,” she says. “We can't let 1,000 flowers grow. It's too expensive to do that. So we've reduced the number of programs that we're working on, and we'll do this handful of things, and once those are successful, then we'll go on to the next. And we're being very thoughtful about it.”

Some of the most promising AI avenues from a financial perspective are on the administrative side, Moran says. She sees better potential in using AI to help manage the supply chain or handle more patient calls.

“You'd look at those opportunities for administrative tasks that are low-risk from an AI standpoint, that would benefit by being automated in some way, shape or form. And so we're looking at things like that to go after,” Moran says.

“The clinical use cases have less of a financial ROI,” she continues. “It's going to be more in reducing the clinician burnout and improving patient access, getting patients to the right provider the first time around. I think that's really what we're trying to do. If there's a financial benefit, then I think that's a plus.”