David Linz, MD, CMIO, Naples Comprehensive Health
The rapid evolution of AI in healthcare is driving new approaches to patient care and clinician support. In this interview, Dr. David Linz, Chief Medical Information Officer (CMIO) at Naples Comprehensive Health, shared insights from his recent presentation at the CHIME Fall Forum with Anthony Guerra, Editor-in- Chief of healthsystemCIO.
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His thoughts shed light on AI’s impact on clinical workflows, clinician burden, and the ongoing efforts to harness its full potential in healthcare systems.
AI implementation in healthcare, particularly in clinical decision support, presents challenges and opportunities. Linz noted that the adoption of AI requires balancing regulatory compliance with practical support for clinicians.
Reflecting on his session at CHIME, he noted, “Clinical decision support is something important to our organization, I think important to a lot of other organizations.” He highlighted that many healthcare providers share common struggles, particularly in managing the fast-paced updates in drug information and clinical guidelines. For smaller healthcare organizations like Naples Comprehensive Health, partnerships with third-party vendors help keep their systems up to date.
One key area where AI is making a significant impact is in ambient AI scribes and other tools designed to reduce cognitive burden on clinicians. Dr. Linz shared a story of a healthcare provider who appreciated the ambient AI scribe technology because it allowed them to focus on patient care without being overwhelmed by note-taking responsibilities. “Some of the providers that we thought maybe wouldn’t have been the heaviest users actually gave us feedback of ‘thank you so much. That really helped me,’” Linz recounted.
As AI technologies advance, the role of effective “prompt writing” – the ability to frame questions or commands in a way that yields useful results – is becoming increasingly important. Linz explained that clinicians need education on prompt-writing to optimize AI tool utilization. “Prompt writing is going to become very important in utilization of these tools,” he observed. For health systems, investing in prompt-writing training could prove beneficial, as it would empower clinicians to get the most out of AI applications.
Beyond documentation, Linz is optimistic about AI’s broader capabilities in clinical workflows. He envisions AI-enabled ambient listening as a tool for more nuanced functions, such as clinical decision support and even real-time suggestions for coding or compliance. “It’s exponential as to what other cognitive burdens it will alleviate,” Linz commented, pointing out that AI could help by “making… suggestions real-time about how to improve your documentation to satisfy various coding or quality measures.” For health systems, integrating AI in this way could reduce the administrative load on clinicians and improve the accuracy of clinical documentation, ultimately enhancing patient care quality.
Despite AI’s potential, Dr. Linz emphasized that healthcare organizations need to approach AI implementation cautiously, especially concerning data security and patient privacy. AI systems need to be embedded securely within clinical workflows to avoid scenarios where personal health information (PHI) is inadvertently exposed. He suggested, “If we have good high-quality tools that are protected… I don’t think there’ll be any need to put PHI in outside sources if we can have those tools readily available.”
In a healthcare landscape that’s becoming increasingly competitive, AI adoption could also serve as a differentiator. Staying engaged with AI’s evolving capabilities is essential: “One of the things… we’re all aware of is this is going to be a piece for recruitment and retention of providers… it may be recruitment and retention of patients as well who seek out high-quality care.”
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