AI's potential runs up against lingering data issues

Artificial intelligence has huge potential to transform care, but the healthcare system needs to crawl before it can walk, according to a panel of speakers from IBM Watson, the Mayo Clinic, and the American Medical Association at an after hours dinner at HIMSS18 Monday. "I think this AI stuff is absolutely real, but at the same time we haven't finished the first job, which is creating systems that are usable by clinicians," Mayo Clinic Chief Information Officer Cris Ross said. The panel talked a lot about EHRs which are still the number one pain point for physicians, who are spending twice as much time entering data as seeing paper. That documentation, for the benefit of the payer, reflects a set of priorities that need to be changed according to AMA President James Madara, MD. "We have to flip this model, starting at the point where we think the truth of the healthcare system is," he said. "Because what we're doing today would be the equivalent of General Motors making cars and paying attention to the dealers but not caring at all about the drivers or the mechanics. No other field would do that and yet that's where we've ended up."