Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1067447
41 Sponsored by: T here's plenty of hype and mystique around artificial intelligence and its potential to transform healthcare. But how can CIOs and IT leaders use AI to solve real business problems? In this article, Tushar Mehrotra, senior vice president of analytics at Optum®, busts a few AI myths and shares practical advice from his own experience on how to approach AI successfully. AI: Solve problems faster with new technologies Technically speaking, AI is the ability of a machine to perform cognitive-like functions that you normally associate with human minds. Things like perceiving, problem-solving or learning. But when you get past the jargon, AI is simply a set of new technologies that can help you solve business problems more efficiently. For example, AI can be impactful in automating situations such as identifying tumors on a patient's scan images, or predicting if a claim is likely to be paid on appeal. This can help you free up capacity and let humans intervene when it's most needed. And with the growing amounts of data and computing power, AI is becoming increasingly relevant and useful in healthcare. Start with the business need When thinking about using AI for your business, it's essential that you don't start with the technology and then force it into a solution. The key is to partner with business leaders to understand their most important needs. Then you can develop a technology strategy to address those needs. Once you have those conversations and understand the business needs, then you ask a few more questions: • What are the AI technologies that enable your business solution? • What is the right talent and skill set that you need? And should you try to hire, train or partner? • How do you access and curate the data you need? The key is to start with business use cases and work backward from them to determine where AI would be most valuable, and how you can use CIOs and other IT leaders to lead the way toward a business solution. Common AI misconceptions There are a few myths about what AI is and what it can and can't do: 1. AI won't replace everyone's jobs. It might change some current roles and create entirely new job categories. But it's no different from other advances; it can help humans become more effective and make processes become more efficient. 2. AI algorithms won't make accurate predictions with messy data. The quality of the data is more important than the actual algorithm. The most important input is data that is relevant to the specific business problem. 3. AI can't remove human bias in decision-making. When human observations and data-collection processes are inconsistent from one observer to the next, algorithms are going to have problems analyzing the data, learning and making predictions. This can result in, for example, misinterpreted medical prognoses or distorted financial models. Lessons learned: Experience with AI in healthcare By Tushar Mehrotra, Optum's senior vice president of analytics "When thinking about using AI for your business, it's essential that you don't start with the technology and then force it into a solution." — Tushar Mehrotra, Optum's senior vice president of analytics