Dive Brief:
- Salesforce launched a tailored copilot solution aimed at infusing AI into healthcare organizations, according to a Thursday announcement.
- Einstein Copilot: Health Actions will let healthcare workers query the tool with natural language prompts to summarize information, update patient and member data and automate outreach, Salesforce said.
- Salesforce expects Einstein Copilot will be HIPAA-compliant by the summer. Copilot: Health Actions will be generally available by the end of the year.
Dive Insight:
Despite pending modernization tasks, organizations in the highly regulated healthcare space are looking into generative AI and its ability to solve critical pain points.
Around one-third of hospital CIOs said AI and ML were the top health IT priorities in 2023, according to a survey by Stoltenberg Consulting. In 2022, the same survey found only 6% of CIOs shared the sentiment.
The push toward AI is driven in part by high labor expenses and reliance on technology platforms, many of which have started embedding AI into their offerings.
Google released generative AI capabilities targeting the healthcare industry’s issues with workforce shortages, burnout and administrative burden in October and has partnered with organizations, such as HCA Healthcare, to kickstart adoption.
Microsoft has also added generative AI tools to help healthcare companies assist patients, improve scheduling procedures and power an administrative chatbot. The cloud giant partnered with Mercy to advance generative AI adoption in the sector in September. Oracle has joined in as well, aiming to tailor its services to healthcare companies
While current adoption rates remain low, more than half of surveyed healthcare executives have plans to buy or implement generative AI solutions within the next year, according to a Klas Research report published in December.
Similar to CIOs in other industries, healthcare IT executives are focusing on strengthening data pipelines and hygiene to get the most out of the technology, but successful initiatives require overarching frameworks addressing governance alongside consumer and worker concerns.
