AI is being increasingly incorporated by doctors to transcribe, read, analyze, and make predictions based on notes and conversations between physicians and their patients. This opens up new possibilities for care and new concerns about privacy, according to a recent account from Axios. A big and largely invisible contribution AI can make is to capture a physician's written or spoken notes automatically. Spending hours entering data manually into electronic health records (EHRs) is not helpful to medical professionals close to burning out. A recent study from researchers at the University of New Mexico, outlined in EHR Intelligence, found that 13% of stress and burnout self-reported by physicians were directly correlated to EHRs.

EndoSoft is pleased to announce that EndoVault 3.2.1.0 All providers using the platform will also have the National Authentication Service for Health (NASH) certificate of security and be on the federated provider directory service, consisting of multiple provider directories in Australia to send secure messages. Argus, the only AI decision support technology that assists clinicians in the detection and sizing of polyps during colonoscopy procedures, has announced a 3-month free trial of their solution. This free trial offers a unique chance to compare detection rates and sizing with and without the assistance of AI. Canada Health Infoway (Infoway) and EndoSoft LLC (EndoSoft) announced today that the EndoVault v3.x solution has achieved Infoway certification under the 2017 Edition of pre-implementation certification requirements.

As often happens with new developments in health IT, there's been no shortage of hype related to the emergence of AI and the changes it can bring. But as often also happens, much of the success of AI will depend on the nurses who care for patients from hour to hour and day to day. Writing recently at DailyNurse, Catherine Burger, a board-certified executive nurse leader, points out that "(b)edside nurses are the key to AI as it relates to predictability models and telemedicine. Data points such as temperature, blood pressure, and physical assessment values, entered into the EHR in a timely manner, can literally make the difference between life and death as the health information technology is scanning thousands of factors to provide outcome information. Getting nurses onboard with real-time, accurate documentation (not just copying the assessment from the previous shift) is essential."

Nurses have always played a critical role at the bedside while bearing witness to numerous changes in technology. In the past 50 years alone, the advancements seem unfathomable to nurses of the not-so-distant past such as "test-tube" babies, medical lasers, the artificial heart, genome mapping, CT and MRI imaging, angioplasty, dialysis, endoscopic procedures, bionic prosthetics, the internet and health information technology (IT), the electronic health record (EHR), and robotic surgeries. However, as health care races toward telemedicine and artificial intelligence, nurses must strategically position themselves to stay relevant. In a recent article in Nursing Management, the author stated: "Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science dealing with the simulation of intelligent behavior in computers. Combining the experience, knowledge, and human touch of clinicians with the power of AI will improve the quality of patient care and lower its cost."

Machine learning/AI capability is increasingly transforming how we engage with technology. Just look at how mainstream digital voice assistants such as Alexa and Siri, customer-service chat bots and bank-fraud detection tools have become. I see promise in healthcare using machine learning/AI technology. One example is using AI to detect breast cancer by analyzing mammograms. Leveraging the expertise of subject matter experts in healthcare is crucial to successfully applying AI to solving healthcare challenges.

Those who aren't paying attention to Artificial Intelligence right now are going to find themselves sadly lagging behind the curve – that's my main takeaway from my conversation with Sajid Ahmed, Chief Information and Innovation Officer, Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital (Los Angeles). It's not that AI is perfected, far from it, but the plain fact that you can't go from zero to done in one step with any AI implementation. So if you want to be on the finish line at the same time as those who are already well out of the AI gate, the time to start your incremental journey was probably about 2 years ago. Sajid Ahmed is the Chief Information and Innovation Officer of Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital in South Los Angeles. He is leading the new hospital's $70 million health information technology initiative and launching an innovation hub on the 42-acre MLK Medical Center Campus.