Net Health’s CIO talks artificial intelligence, machine learning and how it will shape healthcare

Net Health’s CIO Jason “JJ” James and many other industry leaders lent their expertise to a recent article from CIO.com, which discussed the growing benefits and opportunities of marrying healthcare with artificial intelligence and machine learning. With its rising popularity and potential usefulness in healthcare, it’s important to take this technological advancement seriously and hear from those spearheading its implementation into our business’ infrastructure.

As an industry leader in specialized software, we were curious how AI technology will impact our industry. We followed up with JJ to get some answers!

• By your estimation, how will artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) impact our industry? Can you give some hypothetical examples?
  
  AI will be utilized to diagnose early stages of disease and illness long before it may be able to be seen using traditional methods.  One example comes from Showa University in Japan; Dr. Yuichi Mori showed that AI was able to detect colorectal cancer with an impressive 86% accuracy. Soon, AI will become as commonplace in healthcare as the stethoscope or x-ray.  Many physicians will utilize AI to serve as an in-house second opinion for diagnosis and treatment.

• As the CIO at Net Health, you are in charge of infrastructure, cloud data centers, and security, among other functions. Do you have any plans to implement AI? If so, can you share a little about your plans?
  
  We are utilizing AI-enabled EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) to protect our servers and workstations from attacks. We have chosen AI-enhanced tools to replace more traditional security platforms. AI’s ability to detect sophisticated attacks more quickly is crucial to our overall security strategy. While Security is foremost a human problem, we will continue to utilize AI to supplement our own Security and IT Teams in order to protect our organization.

• How can AI be used to improve business operations and efficiencies?
  
  Robotic Process Automation (RPA) will be used to free up many roles within business by automating many repeatable tasks. Those frequently repeated tasks will be handled by bots. Much of this is already happening within your own life. For example, many chat responses used by retailers have been offloaded to bots to track package deliveries and answer common questions. This frees up customer service reps to handle more complicated tasks. I foresee 10% of the workforce to be made up of non-human workers (bots) within the next few years. This isn’t to say people will be replaced using bots, but rather free up people to work on innovation and process improvements that will benefit not only their respective organizations, but also grow their own careers.
  

• The article highlights the many benefits of the utilization of AI/ML. What are some glaring negatives to implementing this verging technology? Do you have any outstanding apprehensions?
  
  I am very optimistic that many of the problems we face can be addressed with AI. When Avengers: Infinity War came out, I published an article called, “Will AI be our Thanos?” that outlines some of my thoughts on the subject. Since then, my optimism hasn’t faded. AI is currently being used to process large amounts of data to find treatments and possible cures for COVID-19.

• As an expert technologist, do you have advice to new technology-focused companies that are looking to adopt new technology like AI/ML, but don’t have the resources to fully support its implementation?
  
  I encourage Tech Leaders to partner with Enterprise Solution Partners. Many organizations believe their business is unique, but in relativity, much of their day-to-day processes are similar to other organizations in different industries and verticals. Leaders and early adopters in those spaces have already implemented strategies and solutions that can be adapted to other sectors. Working with Enterprise Solution Partners allow your organization to take advantage of the heavy lifting and those lessons learned by the early adopters. Use their findings and mistakes to drive success within your organization.

Want to hear more of JJ’s views? Click here to listen to JJ’s interview with TechTalk where he discusses why attackers target healthcare organizations, Google’s Project Nightingale, and the importance of securing patient data or click here to learn how CIOs are dealing with COVID19 and working remotely.