The AI Scribe Was the Warmup, Now It’s Time to Deliver On Your AI Roadmap

Healthcare COO and CFO, if your only AI success is an ambient scribe, you’re still watching from the sidelines.  While you’ve addressed a significant provider pain point (which is a win!), it’s only a localized victory.  By tomorrow, the question on everyone’s lips will be, “What’s next?”.  They want to see what you can do for an encore.

Smart healthcare leaders are two steps ahead because they realize a roadmap is more than a list of pain points.  While their peers are still collecting wish lists from department heads in operations, informatics or revenue cycle, these leaders are looking for frontline operational challenges that prioritize clinical flow, patient safety and provider satisfaction.

Yesterday’s Win, Today’s Problem

So what’s your problem?  Well…your AI roadmap is dead in the water because organizational inertia is the default state of healthcare. 

Eight months ago, you proved this inertia wasn’t permanent.  In order to get the AI scribe project started, and over the finish line, you recognized that business-as-usual (BAU) was not going to cut it.  Delivering this project on a compressed timeline required a clean break from the silos.  

People knew what was at stake, so they (temporarily) relinquished control over their turf and people.  In that moment, a dedicated cross-functional team was the only viable path to the finish line and they agreed.

But since then you have traded agility for the old status quo.  Once the scribe project finished, the cross-functional team was disbanded and the silos reasserted themselves.  It’s back to BAU with all its associated delays and finger pointing.

As a result, progress on the roadmap has stalled because your leaders are defending their turf.  Each is fighting for their piece of the AI pie instead of collaborating to provide greater value for providers and patients.  No one is thinking about the big picture.

Cross-Functional Teams as the Antidote to Silos

Chaitanya Vempati, AVP of AI & Analytics at Memorial Hermann, recently observed, “the most impactful healthcare AI solutions come from tight collaboration between operations, clinicians and engineering – not building in silos.”  He goes on to say that the most interesting projects “originated from frontline operational pain points” where “clinical teams and AI engineers worked together weekly in an agile feedback loop.”

Applying that same agile feedback loop to your AI roadmap is what will allow you to replace cumbersome workflows and error prone processes with high-impact technology.  When clinicians, operations and IT collaborate in real-time, this enables your providers to deliver more top-of-the-license care.

If you’re tired of functional silos anchoring your growth, it’s time to rethink how your teams are organized and interact with one another.  

Schedule a discovery call to learn how we can help you build cross-functional teams and an AI roadmap oriented around provider and patient needs.