Hospitals must transition from task-based digital tools to intelligent, agentic systems

For the next year, the transition from task-based digital tools to intelligent, agentic systems is a very important development in health IT, Ryan M. Cameron, the new chief information and innovation officer at Children's Nebraska in Omaha, told Healthcare IT News when asked what one of the most important issues is in health IT today.

"Organizations now have incredible new opportunities to reduce friction in care delivery, particularly administrative and operational burdens," he said. 

"Healthcare does not suffer from a lack of technology – it suffers from technology that adds work instead of removing it. Clinicians and care teams are overwhelmed by documentation, prior authorization, eligibility verification and fragmented workflows that pull them away from patients.

"This is why I believe systems Children's Nebraska has built like HeyMedicaid.med represent a critical evolution in health IT," Cameron added. "By using agentic AI to proactively manage Medicaid eligibility, enrollment and renewal workflows, HeyMedicaid.med addresses one of the most persistent and inequitable failures in our system: children losing coverage not because they are ineligible, but because the process is too complex to navigate."

This is not just an operational issue – it is an access, equity and outcomes issue, he added. Technology can shift challenges from access and focus conversations on healthcare itself – simplified processes benefit everyone involved in healthcare, he said.

Agentic AI – the game-changer

Cameron believes agentic artificial intelligence is a game-changer.

"Children's Nebraska is deploying agentic and workflow-aware AI in operational environments and evaluating the best, safest, most reliable areas for deployments in clinical environments," he explained. "A real key here is to pursue a small set of agentic AI projects, not as pilots for innovation's sake, but as solutions to concrete problems.

"Last year, healthcare organizations reported most AI pilots failed to deliver the ROI projected," he noted. "You have to start with the problem first and then build the tech around it. In the example of HeyMedicaid.med, AI agents complement the work of people and keep a 'human in the loop.' What we've built is very value-focused, proactively identifies eligibility risk, guides families through enrollment steps, and coordinates across hospital, state and community partners."

While the problem is complex, the goal for AI deployments can be simple – for Children's Nebraska, fewer coverage gaps, fewer denied claims and better continuity of care for children, he added.

"More broadly, through our innovation center, we partner directly with clinicians, operational leaders and external startups to co-design systems that integrate into existing workflows," Cameron explained. "We are intentional about governance, transparency and safety so we can ensure AI augments human judgment rather than replacing it.

"With the rapid development tools available today, everyone can be a developer, and that comes with pros and cons," he continued. "We need to refocus IT from being the only place where development happens to a team that consults and trains others on how to build agentic AI and other tools that are safe, secure and reliable."

Leaders should reframe AI

So, what should hospital and health system C-suite executives and other health IT leaders be doing now to work through the challenges that come with these technologies and approaches? Cameron sees a compelling need for healthcare leaders to reframe AI and automation as strategic infrastructure, not experimental tools.

"This means moving beyond pilots and proofs of concept toward scaled, governed deployments paired with enterprise priorities like access, patient satisfaction, clinician job retention and financial resilience," he explained. "The challenges we face are rarely technology issues. Executives can benefit from investing their time in workflow ownership.

"The hardest problems in health IT are not technical – they are operational and cultural," he continued. "Leaders must empower interdisciplinary teams that include clinicians, IT, operations, compliance and patients to redesign processes end to end, with AI embedded where it truly adds value."

Cameron said it is a misnomer that the AI age can be led by being "hands off" – leaders are needed more than ever to map processes and find the gaps that impact patients and patient families.

"Technology pilots don't fail because the technology doesn't work," he concluded, "they fail because they're never designed to become real workflows."

Follow Bill's health IT coverage on LinkedIn: Bill Siwicki
Email him: bsiwicki@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.

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