The pandemic has wreaked havoc with the financial stability of many healthcare organizations, which is leading to a surging interest in AI for potential solutions.

That’s according to a new report from Sage Growth Partners, a healthcare strategy consultancy, based on a survey conducted for Olive.ai.

While healthcare has traditionally lagged behind other industries when it comes to implementing new technology, the report notes that “after years of lagging behind other industries, AI and automation are finally being adopted to enable hospitals and health systems to transform core business processes and operations.”

That said, respondents to the survey also “listed key challenges such as a longer time to implement and a slower time to ROI than anticipated, as well as the need for additional staff and difficulty identifying which processes to automate.”

Among the survey’s findings:

• From 2019 to 2020, executive familiarity with automation grew from 50% to 66% and deployment of automation solutions increased from 23% to 34%
• 76 percent of respondents said automation has elevated in importance because cutting wasteful spending will help them recuperate and grow faster
• 90 percent have an AI/automation strategy in place, up from 53 percent in 2019
• More than half (56 percent) reported ROIs of 2x or higher on their automation technologies

Overall, executives report a heightened urgency around adoption, with 75 percent of respondents saying strategic initiatives around AI and automation are more important or significantly more important in 2021 since the pandemic.

"It's incredibly promising to see the continued and growing adoption of AI within healthcare," said Sean Lane, CEO of Olive, in a statement. "AI solutions are essential pieces of infrastructure at hospitals and health systems, and we have just begun to scratch the surface. There are so many more connections to make using AI– so many more lights to shine on all of the broken healthcare processes that stand between providers and patient care.”

Despite the surge in interest, the survey found actual implementation lagging.  For example, of respondents, only 7 percent of hospitals’ AI strategies are fully operational, and only 6 percent of respondents cited having 10 or more use cases live across their organization.

Nearly half (44 percent) of respondents cited resource constraints – such as not enough staff to support implementation – and difficulty identifying best processes for automation as their top two implementation challenges.