Vision: Position Northern Ohio as a leader in AI-driven healthcare solutions.

Mission: Create a collaborative and innovative environment in the community that leverages AI to improve patient outcomes, increase operational efficiencies, and strengthen the regional economy.

Get Involved!

If you’re interested in joining the AI Center of Excellence and contributing to this exciting initiative, please contact John Paganini at johnp@northernohiohimss.com for more details.

ONE YEAR LATER:  The Second Look at AI in Healthcare: Expanding Possibilities and Building Responsible Strategies

-By John Paganini, Co-Chair, Northern Ohio HIMSS AI Center of Excellence.  Shared in the March 2025 NOHIMSS Monthly Newsletter.

It’s amazing how much progress happened in the AI space in one year – especially in healthcare. Returning to the AI in Healthcare Preconference Forum for the second year at HIMSS 2025 in Las Vegas, it is apparent that AI has shifted from a specialized technology to a transformative force that continues to and will forever reshape healthcare. Cognitive AI capabilities have increased by a hundredfold, autonomous AI solutions are becoming a reality, and entire care workflows are being reimagined. The forum included healthcare leaders, technologists, researchers, and front-line clinicians to explore the critical success factors for AI in healthcare—and to reflect on what “responsible AI” truly means for our organizations.

Responsible AI Strategies and Alignment

An overriding theme this year was the importance of a responsible AI strategy that aligns with organizational goals and addresses the needs of all stakeholders—clinicians, patients, administrators with healthcare institutions of all sizes. From the boardroom to the bedside, it’s clear that AI can propel an organization’s vision forward – this happens when the entire workforce – including patients - understand how to leverage AI safely, effectively, and ethically.

HIMSS25 AI Sessions:

1. AI Policy Considerations and Practical Adoption Strategies for Transformative Technologies
   This session highlighted policy issues facing the new administration, including how organizations can bridge policy gaps and develop responsible AI strategies.

2. Unpacking Bias in Healthcare AI: Strategies for Responsible Innovation
   Panelists discussed the critical aspects of responsible AI in healthcare. They explored bias in AI, facilitating effective collaboration between partners and healthcare systems, and developing frameworks to align with organizational goals.

3. Navigating AI Integration Through Change Management and Workforce Inclusion: People Panel Discussion
   Successful AI integration depends on the people behind the technology and this discussion underscored the importance of training organizational leaders and front-line workers on new AI-driven workflows. Transparency about “why” and “how” these solutions are introduced can build trust, boost morale, and minimize disruption.

4. Making AI Transparent: The Power of Explainability in Healthcare
   This session covered how AI should build trust, promote equity, and drive better clinical outcomes. Practical strategies to assess AI tools and ensure they meet the ethical and real-world needs of today's healthcare landscape were covered.

5. Lead Your AI or It Will Be Leading You: Process Panel Discussion
   The panel discussed how to bridge the gap, provide practical guidance, shared success stories, and resources needed to ensure equitable AI adoption.  On the panel was Rohit Chandra, Chief Digital Officer at the Cleveland Clinic.  Rohit shared thoughts om how AI can transform overtime, the journey of discovery, clinical patient safety and the concept of explainabilty.

6. How to Talk to Your CFO About the ROI of AI
   This session provided actionable strategies to align AI projects with financial goals, reduce operational inefficiencies, and deliver measurable value. The importance of addressing your CFO’s toughest questions and fostering a strategic partnership to advance an organization’s AI journey was discussed.

7. Beyond the Hype: The Technologies Reshaping Healthcare Today and Tomorrow
   AI is part of a broader innovation wave, from robotics and genomics to remote patient monitoring. Their impact on personalized and efficient care, and the challenges to widespread adoption were discussed.

8. Bridging the Digital Divide: Advancing Equity in AI-Driven Healthcare
   A key component of responsible AI is inclusivity—ensuring no populations are left behind. This session looked at strategies for building technical capacity in underserved communities and implementing inclusive, equitable AI solutions.

9. Accelerating Enterprise GenAI
   Generative AI is changing the way clinicians and administrators approach data-intensive tasks. The nature of GenAI, its current state and pitfalls for healthcare, and what the next generation of AI looks like with Enterprise AI was discussed.

10. Synaptic Sync - Building Strategic Technology Partnerships for Effective AI Integration: Technology Panel
    The panel offered hands-on guidance on identifying ideal strategic partners and how to evaluate vendors, align goals, and establish partnerships that ensure smooth integration. The phrase “AI is the new UI” was stated here.

11. Future Vision & Healthcare Leadership
    Real-world strategies for integrating AI, digital health, and population health initiatives to future-proof healthcare systems worldwide were discussed.  The concept of AI+MD was presented along with the challenge of “trusting” AI.

Some of the Key Takeaways

• Cognitive AI Is Taking Off: With cognitive AI capabilities increasing 100-fold, healthcare professionals sense an inflection point. AI “scribes,” cited often throughout the day, offer simple, clinically safe ways to automate documentation and free clinicians to focus on patient care.

• AI Alleviates Burdens: By automating mundane tasks, AI reduces the “friction” within organizations. Many attendees described how ambient voice workflows and even commodity-level “ambient listening” can minimize clerical overload.

• Training Is Essential The nature of healthcare roles will inevitably shift. Leaders and front-line staff must be trained to understand and trust AI solutions—and be prepared for continuous improvement as the AI learns from both best practices and mistakes.

• Data Integration: Valuable AI depends on high-quality data, but so much information remains siloed in disparate systems. Organizations must champion the integration of data across clinical, operational, and social domains to realize the true power of AI.

• Accelerated Adoption Impacts Value-Based Care: Many speakers championed AI as a tool for meeting the metrics demanded in value-based reimbursement. From prevention to care coordination, rapid AI adoption may help healthcare systems realize better patient outcomes at lower cost.

Looking Ahead

For those of us serving as AI champions within our institutions, forums like this reaffirm that AI is a powerful catalyst—and a massive responsibility. The continuing theme is that AI must be managed ethically, governed transparently, and adopted through processes that bring everyone on board. The results are both promising and proven - AI transforms workflow efficiency, create more precise patient care pathways, and reimagines/redefines) how frontline clinicians interact with technology.

ISO/IEC 42001 – The international standard that specifies requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and continually improving an Artificial Intelligence Management System (AIMS) within organizations was also briefly mentioned. This will be an area explored in the AI COE.

It's amazing to see how much has changed since last year.  And the rest of this week I will be attending many AI lectures.  For all of us, we are looking forward to an even more advanced—responsible—AI landscape in the years ahead. AI is not just a trend, one speaker stated “AI is an epoch” and compared it to electricity, internet and other major milestones in history.

Truly, AI is an integral force for delivering better health outcomes, advancing value-based care, and resilient healthcare systems. As the Northern Ohio HIMSS AI Center of Excellence continues to propel these initiatives, the insights shared at this forum reaffirm that our collective efforts are essential in charting a clear and promising path for AI-driven healthcare.

Historical Updates:

To see the original announcement letter shared in our July 2024 monthly newsletter, click here.

To see the update announcement shared in our August 2024 monthly newsletter, click here.

To see the update announcement shared in our November 2024 monthly newsletter, click here.

To see the update announcement shared in our December 2024 monthly newsletter, click here.

To see the update announcement shared in our February 2025 monthly newsletter, click here.