Leaders in the digital health space told MobiHealthNews their predictions about where AI will make the most significant mark in healthcare in 2024.   

Following the considerable increase in the use of AI in healthcare in 2023, stakeholders expect next year to bring even wider adoption of the technology across various sectors, from implementation in physician-facing tools that help ease provider burnout to addressing consumers' loneliness.

Neil Patel, head of new ventures at Redesign Health

"At the enterprise level, uncertainty around OpenAI's future may lead to organizations taking a step back to develop an AI strategy that isn't so dependent on a single platform–analogous to the multi-cloud strategy discussion. From a use case perspective, until more traceability and verification for AI-generated outputs and regulation catches up, AI will be pointed at administrative and operational use cases vs. clinical and patient-facing ones."

Doug Hirsch, cofounder and chief mission officer at GoodRx

"This year, we saw AI, ChatGPT and VR dominate tech conversations. And I’m sure we’ll continue to see consumers and the health system embrace these solutions in some way, shape or form next year. But I really think the industry should prioritize applying the technology that solves our most fundamental healthcare challenges. 

That doesn’t necessarily mean we need the flashiest technology. In fact, the shiniest solutions often are not immediately scalable, and therefore, their promise to better our healthcare system lies multiple years down the road. My hope is we’ll see more smart applications of AI that increase transparency within the healthcare system." 

Kourosh Davarpanah, CEO and cofounder of Inato 

"In 2024, we will see an unusually swift adoption of AI at all levels of the healthcare industry. This trend is already evident in the biopharma industry. Traditionally a slower adopter, biopharma is already using AI at scale from drug discovery to portfolio management, all the way to clinical trial design and delivery."

Matthew Stoudt, cofounder and CEO of AppliedVR

"We are entering the Cambrian explosion of AI in healthcare. Using algorithms to better respond to individual patients and personalize care will be a new frontier for AI, and in VR, there are opportunities to deliver AI-driven one-to-one and group therapy sessions as well as precision VR therapy based on each person's biofeedback data. I'm excited to see the impact AI will make across the ecosystem."

Sam Glassenberg, CEO and founder of Level Ex

"Here are three major waves we can expect in 2024 that aren’t being talked about much (if at all):

1. Use of genAI to generate compelling and self-consistent training content for doctors. To create effective and fun training cases, you often need a large space for doctors to explore patient responses, test results, outcomes, etc. 

2. Use of genAI to solve the hard problems in healthcare. There is a common misconception that genAI’s R&D value is in replacing low-to-mid-level programmers. We’ve found that the most compelling use of genAI is when top-decile engineers use it to rapidly accelerate solving extremely complex R&D problems, especially those that require deep multidisciplinary knowledge across math, physics, medicine and other fields. 

3. Use of genAI to solve loneliness. There is an epidemic of human loneliness that is responsible for both tremendous psychological suffering and a broad set of negative health outcomes. In 2024, geriatric patients can spend time with their favorite fictional or non-fictional human, complete with photo-accurate rendering and a voice and personality that is indiscernible from the real thing – a personal confidante who cares about nothing more than whatever that patient wants to talk about that day."

Amit Khanna, senior vice president and general manager of health at Salesforce 

"My prediction is that generative AI will transform healthcare, fundamentally changing the cost trajectory of the industry. GenAI will be used for a number of things, including creating efficiencies in claim management and summarization, turning unstructured data into insights, and spotting trends/patterns to better predict at-risk patients. It will also be applicable in the life sciences industry, accelerating clinical trials, including the trial recruitment and enrollment process, such as identifying eligible participants and matching them with the right sites to reduce drop off in a clinical trial study."

Dr. Peter Bonis, chief medical officer at Wolters Kluwer Health

"The adoption of artificial intelligence in the clinical setting will continue to evolve, particularly with generative AI for clinical decision support, as healthcare organizations begin piloting and evaluating these solutions for responsible and safe patient care applications. Generative AI has the potential to help clinicians make decisions more accurately and efficiently at the point of care. 

However, the capabilities of AI will far outpace the scaled-up adoption of AI applications, which are constrained by workflow, competing priorities and economic considerations driving uptake. We expect most of the uptake to be dominated by existing workflow applications such as EMRs and related services like documentation, although operational applications such as nurse scheduling, revenue cycle management and prior authorization will also get an AI boost."

Munjal Shah, cofounder and CEO of Hippocratic AI

"The World Health Organization is projecting a global shortfall of 10 million health workers by 2030. This coming year we will use generative AI to begin to solve healthcare’s staffing crisis in a safe and scalable way. Imagine if we had an unlimited nurse capacity to provide chronic care management to every person in the world. Only generative AI has the potential to provide this level of 'super-staffing.'"