Healthcare IT leaders are under immense pressure to keep up with AI. According to the 2024 Healthcare Payer & Provider IT Trends and Priorities report, developed by KLAS Research and Bain & Company, AI and generative AI continue to gain mindshare across the industry. While only 6% of surveyed providers had an established AI strategy in 2023, that number rose to 15% in 2024, with another 46% actively developing one. That’s a dramatic shift in a short period of time.

The optimism is real. Roughly 73% of providers expressed positive feelings about implementing generative AI in their organizations. But so is the caution, and rightfully so. Healthcare leaders know that AI brings both opportunity and risk, and moving fast without the right foundation can create problems that are difficult to undo.

In this article, we’ll walk through what the report shows about where AI adoption stands today, and we’ll explain how a modern, secure, integrated IT environment sets the necessary foundation for embracing AI in healthcare.

Where AI Is Gaining Traction

Healthcare organizations are finding their footing with AI across both clinical and administrative workflows. According to the KLAS survey, providers believe that generative AI will offer the most value in three areas:

• Clinical documentation and dictation
• Predictive analytics and risk stratification
• Clinical decision support tools

On the clinical side, ambient speech technology has emerged as one of the most rapidly adopted applications, with many organizations leveraging it to improve care team efficiency. Imaging AI and tools that support coding and clinical decisions are also in use, often embedded within existing EHR platforms like Epic and Microsoft — the two most frequently cited vendors for AI capabilities.

Administrative applications are gaining ground as well. Currently, the most common AI-assisted administrative use case is automated responses to patient messages, used by nine of the 39 organizations reporting administrative AI use. Looking ahead, that same use case also tops the list of future AI plans, signaling that patient-facing automation will be a growing priority in the years ahead.

These use cases share a common thread: they work best when they have access to clean, well-governed data.

The Barriers Are Worth Taking Seriously

The research is clear on what’s slowing AI adoption down. Providers and payers alike point to the same top barriers to AI implementation:

• Regulatory and legal considerations: 43% of providers and 38% of payers
• Resource constraints: 40% of providers and 42% of payers
• Accuracy, safety, and hallucinations: 39% of providers and 44% of payers

The reality is that AI, especially generative AI, introduces new risks that organizations will have to actively manage. A system that calls up incorrect clinical information or stores patient data insecurely doesn’t just become an IT problem, it’s a patient safety and compliance problem.

The concern that adoption might outpace governance is valid. When AI tools enter an organization faster than the policies and processes needed to support them, the risks multiply quickly. That’s not a reason to avoid AI — it’s a reason to build the right foundation before adopting it.

Why Your IT Foundation Should Be Your Starting Point

Despite the growing investment in AI, many organizations have a significant internal visibility problem. Large organizations with 500 or more beds are leading the charge in AI deployment, but the AI footprint is often fragmented across departments and lacks centralized oversight. Less than half of the respondents surveyed were aware that their organization even used AI solutions, and those who did know could name only one or two tools.

Every AI use case gaining traction in healthcare depends on the same things: clean data, reliable systems, strong security, and end-to-end visibility into the environment. Without this foundation, AI will underperform.

Proactive IT monitoring and management makes AI adoption more sustainable in several concrete ways. It delivers:

• A stable baseline for evaluating and integrating new AI tools
• Faster anomaly detection to help teams catch issues early
• Governance visibility that tracks AI usage across the organization
• Freed-up internal capacity so that IT staff can contribute to AI governance efforts

The organizations moving forward with AI most effectively aren’t necessarily the fastest movers. They’re the ones with the infrastructure and governance frameworks that let them adopt AI in steady, deliberate steps without losing control of their environments.

Build an AI-Ready IT Foundation

According to the report, about half of all respondents are either currently using AI solutions or actively considering them for the future. So the question for most organizations isn’t whether to embrace AI — it’s how to do it responsibly. The answer starts with knowing what you have and managing it well.

GuideIT helps healthcare organizations build a managed IT environment that supports responsible AI adoption. We deliver 24/7 monitoring, proactive risk identification, and a process built around ongoing maintenance and measurement, so your organization can embrace new technologies like AI without getting in over your heads. Learn more about our IT Management & Monitoring solution.