Empowering healthcare pros: AI’s role in collaborative care

The healthcare sector is well acquainted with the transformative power of predictive AI, as diagnostic tools using its capabilities are almost ubiquitous in the U.S. But the sudden availability of generative AI platforms presents new opportunities and new challenges for hospitals and clinics. Foremost among these is determining how best to use the power of AI to enhance patients’ care journeys and the positive implications for the healthcare workforce.

The use of AI in healthcare was explored in-depth by speakers and attendees of the ViVE Conference Feb. 16-19 in Nashville, Tenn. In a Feb. 18 session titled “AI Transforming the Care Journey with the Intelligent Clinical Environment,” Grant Thornton’s Healthcare Growth Leader Claudia Douglass and Dr. Peter Pronovost, Chief Quality & Clinical Transformation Officer for University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio, discussed their work on implementing the “Living and Leading with Love” approach in that healthcare system, and the role AI plays in its implementation.

Living and Leading with Love is designed to promote an empowered environment for employees by promoting organizational collaboration in order to deliver patient care more effectively and humanely. AI use is a key to make this collaborative, human-focused organizational culture tick, and in their discussion, Pronovost and Douglass disclose, as shown in the excerpts of their discussion below, how the Living and Leading with Love approach makes that happen at University Hospitals and can be applied elsewhere through the “Pathway to Proven Performance” framework.

Defining AI’s purpose and role

1:18 | Transcript

In this segment, Pronovost and Douglass observe that AI works best when it “augments” the human intelligence needed to run a healthcare organization.

1:43 | Transcript

Pronovost describes to Douglass how, based on his work in Washington D.C., the disruption caused by AI could prompt opposing reactions on the regulatory side ꟷ toward more caution to address risks and toward more leniency to promote growth.

Exploring AI modeling

3:04 | Transcript

Instituting a new methodology of change requires planning before any sort of AI use is implemented. In this excerpt, Pronovost outlines the concept of using a “hierarchy of value” that can be used to understand what choices can bring about a more human-focused approach.

1:58 | Transcript

Statistical assessments of probability are not understood as well as they should be by medical professionals. AI can show, graphically or through other visually appealing means, statistical insights that lists of numbers can obscure. 

3:53 | Transcript

Sometimes particular duties assigned to a job can be a burden and negatively affect performance. Pronovost describes how using AI to tailor job functions to an individual can energize that worker and improve performance.

Connectivity and caring

1:32 | Transcript

As described in this clip, a remote nursing mentorship program can address shortfalls in clinical training by having experienced nurses advise first- and second-year nurses without having to be onsite.