The single most important thing that a medical team does before a surgery is cleaning the tools. Fully functional and clean instruments are critical to successful outcomes. Without adequate cleaning, patient safety is at risk. The same is true for your digital operations. As organizations prepare to forge into a future with artificial intelligence (AI), they must also "clean" their tools--that is, their processes and data.

In my last post, I began my discussion on how clear oversight can help ensure inclusion of ethical considerations when deploying artificial intelligence technologies, or AI, in healthcare. Another key area--transparency--will also need to be addressed. Today, transparency in medicine is comparatively simple. A clinician knows his or her limitations and can seek the help of his or her peers through processes such as peer review. Likewise, a patient can question or provide additional information based on his or her trust of the clinician.