MIT Sloan Management Review Article on AI on the Front Lines

It’s 10 a.m. on a Monday, and Aman, one of the developers of a new artificial intelligence tool, is excited about the technology launching that day. Leaders of Duke University Hospital’s intensive care unit had asked Aman and his colleagues to develop an AI tool to help prevent overcrowding in their unit. Research had shown that patients coming to the hospital with a particular type of heart attack did not require hospitalization in the ICU, and its leaders hoped that an AI tool would help emergency room clinicians identify these patients and refer them to noncritical care. This would both improve quality of care for patients and reduce unnecessary costs.

Aman and his team of cardiologists, data scientists, computer scientists, and project managers had developed an AI tool that made it easy for clinicians to identify these patients. It also inserted language into the patients’ electronic medical records to explain why they did not need to be transferred to the ICU. Finally, after a year of work, the tool was ready for action.

About the Author

Kate Kellogg (@kate_kellogg) is the David J. McGrath Jr. (1959) Professor of Management and Innovation at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Mark Sendak (@marksendak) is the population health and data science lead at the Duke Institute for Health Innovation. Suresh Balu is the associate dean for innovation and partnership for the Duke University School of Medicine and program director of the Duke Institute for Health Innovation (@dukeinnovate).