Introduction to Ardent Health’s Digital Transformation
Nashville-based Ardent Health includes 30 hospitals and more than 280 sites of care in six states, including Idaho, Kansas, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. It’s a large organization, so when it was looking for its first digital chief, it knew it needed a pro who could keep a lot of plates spinning at once. The health system appointed Anika Gardenhire, RN, to be its new chief digital and information officer in 2023, and she got straight to work transforming the health system’s digital strategy.
Enhancing the Provider Experience
Key to that strategy is leaning into driving improved experiences for patients and providers alike, says Gardenhire. "We’re focused on things like ambient technologies for our providers, as well as automating the collection of vital science using a sensor that helps support our nursing and allied health professionals," she explains. "As well as new systems, even in the telephony space for things like outbound calling. Those are some of the high-profile projects in the digital and technology space we’re driving forward."
Gardenhire’s perspective is that ambient listening AI is a game-changer when it comes to reducing the administrative burden on clinicians, but also supporting things like better code and capture and better documentation. For ambient listening, Ardent has been focused on that for the improvement of the provider experience, and they have a really great system they have been piloting. They’re also starting to look at how to expand that beyond the provider experience, and how to start thinking about nursing and other professionals who complete documentation or do notes as well.
Integrating Technologies into Operations
Gardenhire has some successful ways to integrate technologies such as AI into a hospital or health system’s day-to-day operations. "One, it’s really helpful when you can have clarity on the use case," she explained. "What is it you’re actually trying to do? Is it a problem? Is it an operational improvement? You really need to understand the use case and the workflow or the customer journey you’re trying to impact." When you have that, it’s easier to ensure you have the operational business partnership and customer buy-in you need to be successful when you’re trying to go about that integration.
Having a focus on change management, understanding the impact of the change from your stakeholders’ perspective, is the most important thing. Ardent Health also has set up governance focused on use cases. It governs the use cases then introduces the toolsets that will be most impactful to those use cases.
A Human-Centric Approach
Gardenhire believes in the importance of maintaining a human-centric approach in a tech-driven health system. "At the end of the day, most technologists are product people," she noted. "We make things for impact on human life. You have to have a human-centric approach because at the end of the day, when it comes to technology without the humans, at least my perspective is the product, the tech, doesn’t matter." Gardenhire’s motto is, "If people don’t do something different tomorrow than they did today because they made a thing, then their thing doesn’t matter."
Ensuring Equitable Access to Care
Gardenhire has some advice for how a tech team and its leaders leverage new healthcare technologies to foster innovation while ensuring equitable access to care. "This is a hard one, to tell you the truth," she said. "The only way you do it is intentionally. We really try and ensure we are managing bias in a very intentional way, that we are approaching it from a perspective that ensures that in healthcare’s digital transformation, but specifically at Ardent, we are actively managing and doing bias checking, we’re fostering it through our technology practices, and we’re partnering with operations to ensure that’s happening as well."
Moving Augmented Intelligence Forward
Gardenhire is working with what she calls augmented intelligence and believes this should transform clinical care. "Augmented intelligence means human in the loop," she explained. "At the end of the day, when I think about what most people term artificial intelligence, a lot of it is things that have been around for a really long time, but now we have the computing power to make more real-time." Human-computer interaction will become even more important as people think about how they’re going to use these technologies, especially in clinical care.
Human in the Loop
So getting the human in the loop is the most important thing to achieving the outcome. "Being able to predict is not the outcome," she explained. "Being able to intervene so you don’t fall is the outcome. That’s why I say human-computer interaction will become even more important, is because if I can’t close the loop around how I alert the human, at some point the computer or the output or the alert that’s coming out of it has to alert the human, and it has to do so in an amount of time that will allow the human to get to a place to actually intervene."
Conclusion
In conclusion, Ardent Health’s digital transformation is focused on driving improved experiences for patients and providers alike. The health system is leveraging technologies such as ambient listening AI and augmented intelligence to reduce the administrative burden on clinicians and support better code and capture and better documentation. By maintaining a human-centric approach and ensuring equitable access to care, Ardent Health is working to transform clinical care and improve patient outcomes.
FAQs
- Q: What is Ardent Health’s digital strategy?
A: Ardent Health’s digital strategy is focused on driving improved experiences for patients and providers alike, leveraging technologies such as ambient listening AI and augmented intelligence. - Q: What is ambient listening AI?
A: Ambient listening AI is a technology that can reduce the administrative burden on clinicians and support better code and capture and better documentation. - Q: What is augmented intelligence?
A: Augmented intelligence means human in the loop, and it is a technology that should transform clinical care by getting the human in the loop to achieve the outcome. - Q: How does Ardent Health ensure equitable access to care?
A: Ardent Health ensures equitable access to care by managing bias in a very intentional way, approaching it from a perspective that ensures that in healthcare’s digital transformation, and actively managing and doing bias checking.
