Addressing workforce and infrastructure challenges with AI and automation

Cyberattacks — and how the cloud can help

Organizations with aging infrastructure are increasingly vulnerable to cybersecurity threats. According to a recent IDC survey, 77% of healthcare organizations have experienced IT outages in the last 12 months that were due to security or cybersecurity events. Nearly one in five outages lasted 25 hours or more.

Health systems can mitigate these risks with managed cloud infrastructures that contain layered security defenses and around-the-clock monitoring. Investing in AI-powered content platforms can provide real-time insights, optimize workflows, scale automation and enhance IT effectiveness.

Get the IDC report: How AI can be a catalyst for change in healthcare

The power of data

IDC projects that healthcare data will expand at a compound annual growth rate of 29% and reach 10,647 exabytes by 2027. Unlocking that information is crucial and allows health systems to transform data into actionable insights.

“What we’re finding,” Shegewi said, “is the foundational issue is healthcare organizations are swimming in data and they’re unable to surface the data that’s meaningful at the right place and for the right person at the right time.”

IDP and RPA generate time and cost savings

Advanced technologies such as intelligent document processing (IDP) and robotic process automation (RPA) help healthcare organizations improve accuracy and enhance efficiency.

AI-powered IDP reduces human errors in document handling and extraction, and streamlines repetitive and time-consuming processes. AI and IDP can have a significant impact on enterprise imaging, with 56% of IDC survey respondents saying that generative AI is critical to dramatically improving medical imaging analytics.

RPA can be a highly effective tool for data entry, billing and appointment scheduling. The technology can free staff to focus on more strategic, value-added activities.

Low-code and no-code technologies provide flexibility

According to IDC, the global market for low-code, no-code and intelligent developer technologies is projected to reach $25.7 billion by 2027. The deployment of these applications can empower health systems to remain agile and responsive to changing needs.

“We’re in an era where development is being rendered in a very simplistic fashion and more and more people are being empowered to develop on their own,” Shegewi said. “Being able to connect these systems and processes that you’re very familiar with through these tools and through workflows that are very custom and very tailored to the organization drives a better level of flexibility and ability for that organization. We’re seeing that increasingly in healthcare.”