Now that investments in AI tools and capabilities are increasing, health care leaders are tasked with establishing the right enterprisewide AI strategy for their organizations. As we concluded in "Smart use of artificial intelligence in health care," AI-enabled solutions can provide many benefits for organizations, such as immediate returns through cost reduction and better consumer engagement, but there's still a lot of work to be done. That means putting strategies into action on a functional level by communicating a clear AI vision, helping the workforce operationalize AI, and finding the right ecosystem partners to supplement technical needs. Deloitte's most recent State of AI in the Enterprise survey, conducted with 2,875 global technology executives across all industries, found that while AI is rapidly changing, it's not fully evolved. To understand where hospitals, health systems, and health plans stand on the adoption and maturity of AI, and what levers leaders can take to improve clinical decision-making, make processes more efficient, and lower costs, the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions analyzed a subset of the survey, specifically the responses of 220 global health care executives.

Any digital health conference features its share of machine learning evangelism. Technology executives give fervent testimonials about its power to save lives and money, to predict episodes of severe illness, to help hospitals root out inefficiency. This year's gathering of the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) in Las Vegas was no different. But in between the glowing anecdotes, an aggressive counter narrative emerged: Machine learning needs a watchdog. Throughout the four-day conference, the largest annual event in health care technology, industry leaders called for better ways to evaluate the usefulness of machine learning algorithms, audit them for bias, and put in place regulations designed to ensure reliability, fairness, and transparency.

Seventy-three percent of all health care organizations surveyed expect to increase their AI funding in 2020. Making processes more efficient (34%) is the top outcome health care organizations are trying to achieve with AI. Health care organizations reported their top AI risk concern is the cost of the technologies (36%). Why this matters While the pandemic has put a spotlight on the need for digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), health care organizations were already experiencing some of their benefits prior to the crisis. "Deloitte's 2020 State of AI in the Enterprise Study, 3rd Edition" by the Deloitte AI Institute and Center for Technology, Media and Telecommunications uncovered how organizations are adopting, benefiting from, and managing AI technologies by industry, including health care.

While the pandemic has put a spotlight on the need for digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), health care organizations were already experiencing some of their benefits prior to the crisis. "Deloitte's 2020 State of AI in the Enterprise Study, 3rd Edition" by the Deloitte AI Institute and Center for Technology, Media and Telecommunications uncovered how organizations are adopting, benefiting from, and managing AI technologies by industry, including health care. While the "State of AI in the Enterprise" survey was conducted before COVID-19 significantly impacted the U.S., its findings are ever more relevant as health care companies look to reduce costs, increase product development and better engage with consumers in the "Age of With," a world where humans work alongside machines to enable greater outcomes. The "Smart use of artificial intelligence in health care" report, launched today, summarizes key findings from that survey, and offers recommendations for how health care enterprises can gain immediate returns on investment and experience a competitive advantage over the longer term. Surveyed leaders agreed that health care organizations are investing, but the investments vary widely.

American physician and surgeon William J. Mayo, one of the founders of the famed Mayo Clinic, stated, "The aim of medicine is to prevent disease and prolong life, the ideal of medicine is to eliminate the need of a physician." Emerging applications of artificial intelligence (AI), as well as medical research trends, suggests that we are moving toward fulfilling medicine's aim and achieving its ideal. Health care organizations appear to be preparing themselves for the next technological step. For instance, in 2014 health care providers spent 4.2 percent of their revenues on IT, compared to a 3.3 percent cross-industry average. Penetration of electronic health care records grew from 40 percent in 2012 to 67 percent in 2017. With its wealth of smart machines, health care is expected to be among the fastest growing industries in terms of data generated.

There's an old adage that goes, necessity is the mother of invention. This is certainly true in health care where market forces are spurring new innovations in biopharma. Recently, Deloitte published an analysis of some of the boldest breakthroughs likely to impact health care across the spectrum. In the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions' Top 10 health care innovations: Achieving more for less report, we surveyed leaders across the health care system on the innovations they believe will be transformative over the next decade. We define innovation as those activities or technologies that break performance constraints to attain a desired outcome in a way that genuinely pushes the envelope of change.