HIMSSCast: Should every healthcare organization have an AI strategy?

This past month, an op-ed was published in the Wall Street Journal with a provocative headline: "Why Most Companies Shouldn’t Have an AI Strategy."

In this age of AI hype, where every third word sometimes seems to be those two letters, that proposition understandably drew some spirited debate in the WSJ comments section.

As the op-ed's author, Joe Peppard, academic director at University College Dublin's Smurfit Executive Development, writes:

The frenzy is understandable. Nobody wants to be left behind, and miss the Next Big Thing. So, many companies are rushing ahead—some even creating AI “centers of excellence” to centralize AI expertise and resources, and naming chief AI officers to the C-suite.

Sorry to say this, but most of them are making a mistake. My takeaway from my work with organizations as they grapple with artificial intelligence is that not only do most companies not need an AI strategy, but they shouldn’t have one at all. Going down that road will be, at best, a distraction.

Certainly, when it comes to healthcare, there are plenty of newly-minted CAIOs, and not a few AI centers of excellence. But those are often at large, well-funded health systems and academic medical centers. Should other, smaller healthcare providers also be embracing AI in earnest? 

Motive matters. As one anonymous health system employee said recently: "We just signed a multi-year AI partnership so we can say we did. If it improves care or efficiency, great, but let’s be honest, the board wanted a press release."

It's been noted before that doing AI for the sake of it – because everyone else is (or seems to be), or from a fear of missing out – can be ineffective, counterproductive, perhaps even dangerous.

Should all healthcare providers be looking for at least some promising use cases for AI tools, even in limited deployments? Or for some organizations might it make more sense to just skip it? We reached Peppard in Ireland recently to talk about his WSJ column, and the larger issue of "AI FOMO" in healthcare and elsewhere. Here's what he had to say.

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Talking points:

• What Peppard sees with business AI adoption that gives him pause

• "Nobody wants to be left behind, and miss the Next Big Thing"

• AI centers of excellence and CAIOs

• Why many AI adopters "are making a mistake"

• "Doctors won't be replaced by AI – but docs who use AI will replace the ones who don't"

• Why many organizations "haven’t done the required foundational work" to make AI a worthwhile investments

• How AI deployed inadequately, or for the wrong reasons "will distort decision-making"

• Building the infrastructure, deploying ancillary technologies and embracing change management to make AI work

• How to educate and train the workforce for AI success

More about this episode:

Why Most Companies Shouldn’t Have an AI Strategy (WSJ)
10 tips to avoid planting AI time bombs in your organization
Opinion: The WHO's unhealthy approach to artificial intelligence
AMA survey: More doctors using – but lukewarm on trusting A
AI in RCM: Healthcare execs optimistic but skeptical
The upsides and pitfalls of AI scribes in 2025