AI identified as a top risk for healthcare

AI and new technologies are among the top five management risks providers face in 2024, according to an annual report by Kodiak Solutions.

The other risks are based around financial performance, competition,  workforce and cybersecurity, with AI and new technologies affecting most of those categories, according to the report.

The efficiencies gained from AI tools must be weighed against the costs of implementing AI and training employees to use the tools properly to gauge the overall impact on financial performance.

The benefits of AI can only be realized if the organization can solve the workforce challenges of recruiting employees with the right skills to manage these tools and their attendant risks, and training employees to use them.

AI automation also could increase turnover as employees without the necessary skills to use these tools leave the organization, raising legal, reputational and cultural risks.

The top management risks were identified through interviews with executive leaders and board members at health systems in the United States and risk assessments conducted at hundreds of hospitals, health systems, medical practices and other provider organizations.

Kodiak defined risk as anything impeding a healthcare organization’s ability to achieve its goals in critical areas like patient care, regulatory compliance, operations, strategic growth and financial performance.

WHY THIS MATTERS

Hospitals and medical practices face increasingly complex and interconnected risks that affect decision-making in clinical, operational and financial matters, according to the annual report on the top management risks for healthcare. 

AI tools, especially those based on generative AI models, promise benefits such as: Efficiency through automation; faster, more accurate diagnoses and treatment decisions; and enhancing the consumer experience.

Associated risks include: Storing and securing enormous amounts of data that is mostly protected health information, protecting the training data for AI models from malicious actors, and rooting out bias that can creep into in AI algorithms because of a lack of data for gender, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity.

“The top risks we have identified affect each healthcare organization in its own way based on its current capabilities, the characteristics of its market and other factors,” said Dan Yunker, Kodiak’s senior vice president for risk and compliance. “As a healthcare leader, you must evaluate how these risks impact your organization and then develop internal audit and compliance plans that allocate your limited resources to the most impactful risk areas for your organization.”

THE LARGER TREND

Kodiak Solutions is a technology and tech-enabled services company that for nearly two decades was a part of Crowe.

Email the writer: SMorse@himss.org