THE AI HOSPITAL REVOLUTION IS HERE

LEADERS AT SOME OF THE WORLD'S best hospitals find themselves in a unique moment.

Just a few years after the COVID-19 pandemic pushed global healthcare systems to a breaking point, many of these top hospital executives are now on the leading edge of what promises to be one of the biggest leaps in modern medicine. Artificial intelligence is quickly showing the potential to revolutionize many aspects of caregiving, from cancer diagnoses to clerical work. But it also presents new risks, uncertainties and vexing ethical questions. With the release of Newsweek's ranking of the "World's Best Hospitals," executives at leading hospitals around the world told us how they are using the power of AI.

"Health care needs to embrace artificial intelligence," said Mayo Clinic President and CEO Dr. Gianrico Farrugia, who also serves on a National Academy of Medicine panel tasked with developing a code of conduct for appropriate health care use of AI.

Although work on the guidelines will continue into the coming year, Farrugia said health leaders should not hesitate to adopt AI tools in the meantime.

"If health care were perfect, we could afford to wait," Farrugia said. "Health care is not perfect, there's too much pain and suffering." The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare many underlying weaknesses, including staff shortages, equipment and supply problems and systemic inefficiencies that both impede care and add cost. The CEOs told Newsweek that AI can help them better address many of those challenges.

"The hospital of the future is a hospital driven by data," said Paulo Nigro, CEO of Hospital Sírio-Libanês in Sao Paulo, Brazil. "And I'll tell you, the [COVID] crisis has accelerated this process of using data to make decisions." But hospital leaders also spoke of a tension between the promise AI holds and its challenges. "We want to be doing the latest and greatest, but we want to be doing it in the safest and the most thoughtful way," UCLA Hospital System CEO Johnese Spisso said.