AI and rural health care: A paradigm shift in America’s heartland By Bill GassenJune 26, 2024

https://www.statnews.com/2024/06/26/ai-rural-health-care-paradigm-shift/?utm_campaign=morning_rounds&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-99lV0MvFSNvvWwnza7txCCT8wq7FcljZ521Ai2aYzd51Bt2PaD29Cu8G3g3URDNfmzBLO6PC7rDqGS4UfI4Gw02hZPng&_hsmi=313187806&utm_content=313187806&utm_source=hs_email A recent working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research noted that artificial intelligence is being used in some “unlikely places,” including the Midwest. Who’s calling who unlikely? Bill Gassen, president and CEO of the largest rural health system in the U.S., argues in a new First Opinion essay that health care providers in rural America are pioneering new uses of AI in their practices. While much of the nation is debating the future of AI, he predicts that its impact on rural health care will be consequential. Recruiting and retaining clinicians to work in understaffed specialities across rural America is one of the greatest demographic challenges in the region. AI can not only help streamline administrative tasks, said Gassen, but soon clinical decision-support tools could help to identify serious health threats, improve diagnoses, and calibrate the precision of medical treatments. Read more from Gassen on what’s really happening with AI in rural America.