Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., is making extensive utilize of artificial intelligence technologies in both clinical and administrative settings across the enterprise. While many hospitals and health systems across the country have begun to explore piecemeal AI designs and constrained utilize cases, Children’s National is slightly ahead of the curve.
One of the reasons it’s been able to go further and faster is that everything related to its AI and machine learning technology is overseen by one person: Alda Mizaku, chief data and AI officer at Children’s National.
Yesterday, in the first part of this two-part conversation with Mizaku, she talked about how to do it AI principals require a deep understanding of technology and clinical operations, as well as mighty leadership skills and effective communication skills, as well as the ability to speak to a diverse group of stakeholders.
Today, she presents a guide to using AI at Children’s National Hospital, takes an in-depth look at one AI project she’s particularly proud of and its results, and offers other CIOs looking to become a CIO a few tips for the future.
Q. Please talk at a high level about where and how Children’s National Hospital is using artificial intelligence today.
AND. We utilize artificial intelligence in several areas. At a broad level, it’s decision support, looking after patients, increasing efficiency, both in clinical and office settings. We also have great success in predictive analytics.
The organization’s goal through the utilize of artificial intelligence is to escalate our ability to make faster decisions when we talk about patients and diagnosis. We look at the treatment plans and steps that are part of these treatment processes to make sure they are personalized and that we have an effective way to track and document notes generated during office and hospital visits.
We are also looking at optimizing resource allocation, which will ultimately improve both patient outcomes and operational workflow. Most of our AI work currently focuses on this area.
Q. This time, I hope you’ll go into more detail and discuss one specific AI project that you’re proud of that is working well for your organization. What effects do you see? How did you oversee this project?
AND. One of them that I’m incredibly proud of and that we implemented relatively recently is the collaboration with Microsoft, where we engaged our technical team and also worked with Microsoft technical experts.
The intention was to create and facilitate a quick prototype session. We wanted to build four rapid prototypes in less than two days. We hear the concept of reliability, so we wanted to work with some of the leading experts in the field to be able to understand some of the ideas that we were interested in and how successful we could be in building some of these prototypes to see if it would be useful in our daily work.
Over 10 departments came and participated in this process, truly bringing team learning to life. Our cooperation with Microsoft has been great. It was a successful initiative. We built four prototypes in just two days.
One focused broadly on the searchability of documents such as policies and procedures, and changed the way people interact with the data and information stored in policies and procedures. Instead of looking at a document, you can ask the AI a question and get an answer without having to do a long search. Based on this, we managed to build a prototype.
We then focused on some areas of the clinical space to which we had addressed the notes generated during the hospitalization and created summaries of these notes with another person in mind. A note that could go to the patient’s parent, a set of notes written in the patient’s language, is something they could understand.
Another one that can be referred to the primary care physician, another one that can be referred to our revenue cycle department so they can understand some of the billing aspects of the services provided as part of the care. We also did something we call Next Best Action, which focuses on looking at all the visits that might come after that interaction and engagement that we had with the patient and compiling them into a common list that you can then follow up on.
If a doctor recommends a visit to a specialist, a return to that office or a specific test, everything is aggregated by artificial intelligence and it is very straightforward to find all the information that was recommended to the patient. We also looked at very specific ways changing some of the alarming and fatigue that was happening in the healthcare space, and piloted the system in that area to see what was possible.
Many possibilities and lots of ideas that were born during this cooperation.
Q. What three or four tips would you give to other CIOs who want to become the chief artificial intelligence officer of a hospital or health system?
AND. I have three or four to share. The first is to understand the clinical landscape and ensure that someone has a deep understanding of clinical workflows and the challenges associated with those processes. This may happen in collaboration with someone within the organization, but this knowledge goes a long way in identifying where AI can add real value.
Another is about fostering collaboration. We talked about this yesterday as well, so just build really mighty relationships with your clinical operational IT teams. This collaboration leads to the successful implementation of artificial intelligence.
Another is to find a way to stay updated. Artificial intelligence technology is developing so quickly, so it can be a challenge to stay up to date with all the latest developments, all the regulations, and all the modern things we see every day. Finding a way to stay connected with modern initiatives, modern opportunities, some of the cutting-edge technologies and some of the emerging compliance policies.
In the end, you should simply focus on responsible utilize and ethics. We just need to prioritize the time it takes to really think through the implementation of AI and consider responsible utilize issues and ensure that patient data, privacy and security are always at the forefront so that we can innovate and introduce great technology, but do it safely and responsibly.