Health systems have spent years rolling out AI tools that draft notes, summarize charts, and answer patient messages. The next wave is different: AI agents that can take actions on their own — placing orders, flagging results, closing gaps in documentation — without a person approving each step.
Some CIOs told Becker’s the industry isn’t ready to watch over them.
“If we’re going to build agents in a healthcare environment, and we’ve got agents crawling across our workforce … we’ve got to manage them. We’ve got to monitor them. We’ve got to make sure that they’re not drifting and that they’re doing what they’re intended to do,” said Eric Neil, CIO of Seattle-based UW Medicine. “They’re not consuming too many tokens, there aren’t duplicate agents — a system to manage the agents is incredibly important.”