For years, HAL WOLF said that the digital transformation of the health care industry is essential to provide better care to patients worldwide.
Wolf says he sees more people recognize this reality. WOLF, Chairman and CEO of HIMSS (the Société des Systems de Systems de Métage), says that health systems must use digital tools to provide health care in areas where it is not available.
“People understand now,” he says. “They see it.”
This week, he will focus on this conversation – and many others – at the conference and the Global Health Himss exhibition in 2025 in Las Vegas. The major annual event highlights the intersection of health and technology is starting today.
More than 30,000 health care heads representing hospitals, technological companies, start-ups, service organizations, government agencies and other players should attend. Before the conference, Wolf spoke with Chief Healthcare Executive® of the evolution of technology in health care, the growth of AI, its limits and current challenges in data exchange.
(See part of our conversation in this video. The story continues below.)
Wolf says he sees more people accept the need to look at digital solutions to provide care, largely because of mathematics. There are not enough clinicians.
“I have not yet been in a health system that has an abundance of nurses and doctors at their disposal,” explains Wolf.
“The use of digital health in order to make a predictive modeling at the individual level and the management of resources, as well as at the level of the system or at the country level, or at the level of the hospital or at the level of the clinic, this is where the accent occurs,” he continues. “We do not have enough health workers, and we will not be able to take care of the demand of this aging population around us. This is where the transformation of digital health must occur. »»
Wolf is very enthusiastic about the potential of artificial intelligence to help health organizations facilitate charges on their workforce. He sees suppliers using AI to rationalize certain administrative work and allow clinicians and staff to focus more on patient care.
He says that AI conversations become more nuanced, as hospitals, suppliers and other organizations say they want AI tools if they solve specific problems. Health organizations are less inclined to recover the latest IA technology and then hopes to find use.
“When you come back three years ago, AI was on the cover of each magazine, and it is always, to a certain extent,” he said. “But it was new. And you can hear leaders who went to their conference room and conference rooms as we must be cool, we must use AI. Where do you use it? And so people caught what they could. »»
“Now it’s substantial. There are now competing applications. Now we learn to use it, to measure it, ”explains Wolf.
The AI will clearly be a dominant theme of the Himss conference this week.
“You will hear a lot of conversations of what has already been done and how it is used, and what are the successes in the use of AI,” says Wolf. “And it really focuses on this operational side, this is where the majority of this work occurs.”
“And also, you will hear interesting conversations on AI and its use in clinical decision-making assistance. It will therefore be at the center and the center, and it absolutely sees maturity in the use of AI and results, and what works, which does not work, and where the opportunities are,” he adds.
Many hospitals and health systems are always cautious to use AI tools To help doctors achieve a diagnosis, and Wolf says it is understandable.
“What AI does is that it has the capacity to synthesize large volumes of information, and this provides support for the decision -making process in conjunction with the clinician, and it’s really cool,” says Wolf. “But this is also where the highest level of prudence exists for AI, because this is where the biases arrive. Where are the opening data sets? What are the hypotheses behind? So that refinement is the place where you hear prudence, appropriately. »»
Wolf has also been an ardent champion for interoperability in health care, so that organizations can more easily share patient data.
Even if there has been a lot of progress to facilitate information on suppliers and payers, Wolf says that there is still work to do. Any patient who has been disturbed that doctors or hospitals have not shared laboratory results or information on procedures can testify to continuous problems in the exchange of information.
At this point, the challenges are not based in technology, says Wolf.
“Interoperability is always a problem,” says Wolf.
“You’ve heard that too many times, but it’s people, processes and technology,” he said. “We have the technological capacity to do all of this. We need the process, and we need the agreement of the people, to work together to ensure that each patient’s care is taken care of, and there is an uninterrupted link between providers and clinicians. We cannot afford to be less effective. »»