Sam Hazen, CEO of Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare, discussed his and HCA's strategies and approaches to AI and other technologies innovating healthcare in an Oct. 1 episode of 3 Takeaways, a podcast hosted by Lynn Thomas.
Here are three things for ASC leaders and physicians to take away from the podcast:
1. Focus on advances in robotics and diagnostics: HCA claims to perform more robotic-assisted surgeries than any other system in the world, allowing the organization to jumpstart new growth in orthopedics, spine and neuroscience. Leveraging these technologies as much as possible can help centers optimize the time and quality of procedures, and the same is often true in diagnostics.
"On the diagnostic side, testing with computerized CT scanners and MRIs is so advanced, so fast now, and can produce such clarity for physicians that in many instances, it's starting to replace more invasive, more time-consuming diagnostic procedures," Mr. Hazen said in a Dec. 3 news release about the episode. "This allows patients to get an answer and start their care process, if they need it, more timely and more economically."
2. Administrative uses. "Healthcare is heavily regulated, and it's complicated because there are third-party payers, insurance companies and so forth embedded in the fabric of the industry," he said. "All these administrative functions have real potential to be streamlined and more efficient."
3. Leveraging data to continuously improve care outcomes. AI has the capability to analyze and de-identify massive sets of data from interactions throughout all of HCA's service lines, which can create ample opportunities for systems to evaluate and learn from interactions with patients on a regular basis.
"If we can support human intelligence with artificial intelligence and make human intelligence better, then our patients are going to benefit in ways I can't explain," Mr. Hazen said. "So I'm unbelievably excited about that."