UMass Memorial Health President & CEO, and MHA Board Member, Dr. Eric Dickson is featured today in a HealthLeaders article in which Dickson discusses the importance of incorporating artificial intelligence into healthcare operations.

Noting that the capacity crisis is the “root cause” of many problems affecting the healthcare system, Dickson added that leveraging AI to aid the workforce is a key to resolving capacity issues.

The article notes that UMass Memorial Medical Center is running at about 110% capacity “as long length-of-stay times are being compounded by the lack of labor, resulting in significant lost revenue. … The increasing occupancy rates are less about the rise in hospitalizations and more about the decline in number of staffed beds, highlighting the importance of a strong workforce.”

To counter the trends, Dickson says providers need to learn how to use AI to create more efficiencies among staff, but that requires clinician buy in.

“AI is math and for years we’ve known solutions to problems mathematically but could never implement them because of the psychology of change,” Dickson said. “I’m spending much more time thinking about the psychology of getting people to use AI and the data platform and how the data gets entered and making sure we have our data platform right, more so than which AI do we want to use and how do you roll it out. Because I think if you don’t have those two building blocks correct, you’re going to fail.”