The energy at HIMSS 2024, which drew over 30.000 attendees interested in finding and sharing state-of-the-art healthcare innovation, was nothing short of stimulating! Light-it’s team who sponsored the event, reviews the key takeaways from the largest HealthTech summit across the globe. How do you sum them up in one article? Let’s give it a try.

Aligned with the HIMSS 2024 theme of “creating tomorrow’s health,” It's safe to state that artificial intelligence and cybersecurity sparked the most debate.

Which AI Innovations took the spotlight at HIMSS 2024?

AI Ambient Clinical Documentation

AI Ambient clinical documentation was the talk of the town. This refers to a sophisticated approach in healthcare documentation where artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are utilized to capture and transcribe patient-provider interactions in real-time within the clinical environment. This method utilizes AI-powered voice recognition, natural language processing (NLP), and machine learning algorithms to transcribe spoken conversations into structured clinical notes automatically.

By integrating AI into the ambient clinical documentation process, healthcare providers can streamline documentation tasks, improve accuracy, and enhance efficiency, ultimately allowing them to devote more time and attention to patient care.

Leaders behind these solutions report their products help reduce doctors’ administrative workload and prioritize connections with patients in a context where disconnection -in an over-connected world- seems regular. A recent survey published by Athenahealth in February found that more than 90% of physicians report feeling burned out on a “regular basis,” primarily due to the paperwork they must submit.

DAX Copilot, developed by Microsoft-owned Nuance, Abridge, Suki AI, CareCloud's CirrusAI Notes, and Ambience Healthcare, were some of the main characters regarding these solutions. According to experts in the HIMSS 2024 stages field, the rate at which the healthcare industry has adopted ambient clinical documentation feels historic.

Since the HIMSS conference last year, more than 150.000 notes have been written through DAX Copilot, embedded into the Epic software (the largest EHR vendor by hospital market share in the US), according to Seth Hain, senior VP of Research & Development at Epic. Technology is growing rapidly. According to Hain, more clinical notes have been written in the first Q of 2024 than in the entire 2023.

According to Abridge’s CEO, Shivdev Rao, their AI ambient solution automates over 92% of its administrative work and saves some doctors up to three hours daily.

Regarding the future, experts at HIMSS 2024 predict that there will be more capabilities for personalization within ambient AI tools, both at an individual and specialty level. This means that ambient AI tools will become increasingly adept at tailoring their functionality to patients' and healthcare providers' unique preferences, characteristics, and contexts. This enhanced level of personalization will empower individuals to receive more precise and effective care while also facilitating smoother and more efficient workflows for healthcare professionals across different specialties.

Workflow and Workforce Optimization

Healthcare Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) vendors are now incorporating AI into their systems to help hospitals better align their staff with patient care needs, thereby ensuring high-quality and safe patient care. These AI-powered solutions aim to find the right balance between costs, demand, and compliance issues.

Applications:

• For instance, healthcare providers are utilizing AI alongside data to pinpoint surgical supplies that adhere to payer contract agreements, ultimately maximizing reimbursements.
• Moreover, within the Human Capital Management (HCM) sector, AI-driven solutions are being employed to manage staffing assignments and match clinical shift coverages, ensuring an optimal patient-to-clinician ratio. This approach not only enhances employee satisfaction and engagement, but also reduces clinical burnout by enabling staff to perform at their best.

AI Security in Healthcare: Issues addressed

Healthcare data breaches in 2023 affected over 540 companies and 112 million people, as reported to the US Department of Health & Human Services. That's just what has been documented. Increased remote work, mergers and acquisitions, and connected devices carrying patient data in the healthcare sector mean that additional IT hardware assets require safe and appropriate management and identification. For worse, the conversations became even more serious and pressing following the Change Healthcare attack, which impacted hospitals and physician finances across the country.

At HIMSS Conference 2024, a number of cybersecurity experts discussed the increasing sophistication of ransomware gangs and how even big businesses might fall victim to assaults. Cyberterrorists are undoubtedly using AI to run more sophisticated social engineering efforts, discovering an organization's security measures and scanning for weaknesses. Experts emphasized how critical it is for healthcare organizations and institutions to reexamine both their internal systems and the security posture of their suppliers.

According to the Deputy Director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Nitin Natarajan, we all need to contribute to the development and fortification of the cyber defenses in our healthcare systems at this critical juncture. In addition to discussing CISA's programs and collaborative approaches to help healthcare technologists deliver the best possible preventative care and treatment for their information systems, the cyber security specialist also covered methods to diagnose and recover from cyber illness and resources to detect cyber vulnerabilities in your technology bloodstream.

Cybersecurity panelists and keynote speakers at HIMSS 24 brought up an unsettling fact: the industry needs to be aware that their current cybersecurity measures might not hold up in the future. It resembles the game of a cat and a mouse. Thus, just as with any kind of opponent, there will always be advancements on both ends. That is how we should approach the challenge that lies ahead of us. Investment, reaction, and planning will all continue to rise in this way.

Final Insights

Walking through the sold-out halls of Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, it was hard to ignore the palpable excitement surrounding AI innovation and how it’s actually happening. Gone are the speculations and predictions of experts as to how this technology would be put into practice in the healthcare industry. Again, things are already happening! And according to HIMSS Conference 2024 experts, they’re happening through ambient AI documentation technologies, which are freeing up the administrative workload of clinicians and giving it back to what really matters: patients.

The accelerated adoption of new technologies, such as Generative AI, is undoubtedly having a positive impact on the healthcare ecosystem. However, as this adoption grows, the vulnerability becomes latent. To address this subject matter, a partnership, alignment, and commitment to security between high-tech solutions developers, healthcare service providers, and government regulators is crucial.

As we've displayed, AI Trends in 2024 are rocketing. At Light-it, we are excited to be leading the change and not only seeing but also making things happen in the field of healthcare innovation. Cases such as eo Care’s AI assistant and our two spin-off companies, Puppeteer and CompliantChatGPT, are solid proof of it.

It's exciting to imagine where we will be standing in a year's time when HIMSS 2025 arrives.