AI takes center stage at HIMSS25 Executive Summit

HIMSS President and CEO Hal Wolf opened the Executive Summit at HIMSS25.

Photo: Susan Morse, Healthcare Finance News, HIMSS

LAS VEGAS – HIMSS President and CEO Hal Wolf kicked off the HIMSS25 Executive Summit here today letting the sold-out audience know that the forum would help them answer the question of how to integrate AI and handle change management.

AI was on the minds of many of the healthcare executives who attended and those at large.

Opening keynote speaker Bob Garrett, CEO of Hackensack Meridian Health, asked the audience how many felt AI implementation at their organizations wasn’t moving fast enough and how many felt it was going at the right pace. There were plenty of raised hands to both questions, and this fits the norm nationwide, according to Garrett.

Four in 10 leaders feel the AI sector isn’t moving fast enough as far as implementation, and one in three feel they’re going at the right pace, he said.

Hackensack Meridian is moving at the right pace, Garrett said, because it’s in a good place in using a number of considerations before implementation. These include disease protection, capacity management leading to burnout alleviation, and research and innovation such as matching the right patient to the right clinical trial.

Financially, in making an investment in AI, Hackensack Meridian has a “pretty thorough business plan for each case,” Garrett said. “We want to make sure we’re producing real results not in five or 10 years, but in one to three years.”

AI is now being used to spot breast cancer before tumors appear.

Robotic surgery is now being used in 17% of general surgery, and that will only increase with an aging population, he said.

It’s also expected to help with chronic diseases, such as chronic kidney disease. Most people don’t know they have it, Garrett said. Ninety percent of healthcare costs, about $3 trillion a year, goes to chronic disease treatment, he said.

AI is advancing so rapidly, it will be interesting to see what will happen with federal regulations.

The future is agentic AI, in which an AI agent will take instructions from a patient for prescription reminders and more. 

“Technology cannot replace the human touch,” Garrett said. “It’s enhancing the quality of people’s lives.”
 

Email the writer: SMorse@himss.org