GenAI in healthcare: Bridging ambitions and strategies

According to recent research by NTT DATA, healthcare organizations are finding it difficult to align their ambitions with strategies concerning GenAI, despite its widespread potential.

While over 80% of healthcare leaders claim to have a well-defined GenAI strategy, only 40% feel they are well-aligned with their overall business strategies. Furthermore, just 54% classify their GenAI capabilities as high-performing.

Healthcare is experiencing transformational benefits from GenAI, including enhanced quality, improved user experiences, and better financial outcomes. However, full potential realisation is impeded by data security, privacy, ethics, and regulatory compliance challenges, as noted in NTT DATA’s executive insight report, GenAI: The Care Plan for Powering Positive Health Outcomes.

Key Insights:

• GenAI accelerates R&D, enabling faster access to new treatments, diagnostics, and predictive analytics, say 94% of respondents.
• The preference for cloud-based solutions is overwhelming, with 95% finding them cost-effective for GenAI needs.
• Skill gaps remain a concern, acknowledged by 75%, with 93% addressing potential impacts on employee roles.

NTT DATA UK’s CTO, Tom Winstanley, highlighted the report's alignment with the UK Government’s 10 Year Health Plan for AI adoption in the NHS, "The plan aims to make the NHS the most AI-enabled health system in the world and calls for all hospitals to be fully adopt AI, driving the UK to the forefront of investment and adoption. To achieve this, it aims to support all doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals with trusted AI assistants, signalling a bridge across the skills gap exposed in the report, whilst securely leveraging the wealth of health data within the NHS.”

Despite improved compliance from current investments, privacy concerns loom large, with 91% worried about PHI violations. Nevertheless, 87% believe existing benefits and potential outweigh the risks, supported by a readiness for significant investments. 59% are planning significant investments in GenAI over the coming 2 years.

Challenges include outdated infrastructure affecting 91% and lacking readiness in data platforms, with only 48% having assessed GenAI preparedness.

Patient outcome improvements are notable, with human-centric GenAI solutions aiding clinicians via early disease predictions and reduced bureaucracy while maintain a patient-centred approach. Projects like NTT DATA’s collaboration with The Royal Marsden serve as benchmarks for AI integration. Flann Horgan, NTT DATA UK&I’s Vice President of Healthcare, underscores ethical and secure AI use as central to their mission to create a healthier society.

The survey has 425 respondents, of which 81% were from larger organisations of more than 10,000 employees. Further, 70% were from the C-suite (28% VP, head or director) while 3% were senior managers or specialists. Only 28% held IT specific roles