
Shakeeb Akhter, SVP/Chief Digital & Information Officer, CHOP
In this interview, Anthony Guerra, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of healthsystemCIO, speaks with Shakeeb Akhter, Senior Vice President and Chief Digital & Information Officer at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), about the institution’s ambitious digital transformation journey.
Leading a multifaceted team, Akhter discusses how CHOP is advancing through strategic investments in AI, automation, digital patient experience, and technology-enabled care models, all aimed at enhancing care for pediatric patients. Akhter explains how CHOP’s enterprise AI strategy is purposefully designed to drive innovation across the organization while staying agile with the rapid AI advancements. Akhter highlights the importance of financial fluency, interdisciplinary governance, and his philosophy on tackling real clinical and operational issues, rather than chasing technological trends. His approach aims at delivering meaningful outcomes for both the hospital and its patients through effective digital technology.
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Anthony: Welcome to healthsystemCIO’s interview with Shakeeb Akhter, SVP and Chief Digital & Information Officer at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. I’m Anthony Guerra, Founder and Editor-in-Chief. Shakeeb, thanks for joining me.
Shakeeb: Good morning, Anthony. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Anthony: All right, very good. Would you start by telling me a little about your organization and your role?
Shakeeb: My role is Senior Vice President and Chief Digital Information Officer at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. We are an academic pediatric institution located in Philadelphia, with three hospitals—one that is exclusively dedicated to behavioral health, close to 700 beds, and around 50 care network sites in the region.
Anthony: All right, very good. Let’s start a little open-ended. Could you tell me what’s currently on your mind in terms of projects, initiatives, and trends? What are the top two or three things you’re working toward?
Shakeeb: Sure. Leading a large digital technology services team, our primary focus is digital transformation. We are committed to systematically and intentionally redesigning our operations through the power of technology. Within that framework, we have three key areas of focus: AI and automation, digital access and experience, and digitally enabled care models.
AI and automation leverage artificial intelligence and automation to make our work more productive and efficient, save time, improve job satisfaction, and help our team work smarter.
Digital access and experience are all about delivering seamless experiences for our patients, ensuring they can access care when and where they need it most.
And finally, digitally enabled care models focus on extending care beyond the hospital and into the home through technology like remote patient monitoring, digital stethoscopes, scales, and wearable devices. We’ve launched several home-based programs to provide children with high-quality care in the most familiar and comfortable setting they know – home.
Anthony: Does it make sense to say that AI, even though it’s a separate bucket, will play a role in the other two areas as well?
Shakeeb: Absolutely. AI requires its own specific focus, which is why we’ve set it up as a separate bucket. We’re building an enterprise AI strategy this year, and we’ve already moved forward with several AI projects over the last few years. AI is horizontal in nature and will inform the other two buckets as well, in addition to other areas like cybersecurity. So, we don’t view it as a silo; we see it as an enabler across a number of clinical and business challenges.
Anthony: You mentioned an enterprise AI strategy. What does that entail, and why is it necessary?
Shakeeb: Good question. To us, an enterprise AI strategy is similar to other strategies, in that it provides a clear perspective on what we will pursue—and what we won’t—in a thoughtful and intentional way. One of the discussions we’re having as a health system is defining our ambition level for AI: do we aim for a low, moderate, high, or transformational industry-leading approach? We’re leaning towards high transformational ambition, which will guide our focus areas and inform decisions about where we will and won’t invest over the next two to three years.
Anthony: Do you think there’s a need to educate users about AI and what it’s capable of, so they can identify use cases, especially since they’re so embedded in the workflows?
Shakeeb: Yes, absolutely. It’s a good idea to involve others in developing the strategy and identifying impactful use cases. In fact, as part of our AI strategy, we have senior leaders co-sponsoring and leading its development, along with four work groups focused on specific domains. These groups are led by people closer to the work, who will involve frontline clinicians and staff to identify pain points and, importantly, to find the intersection between those pain points and AI’s current capabilities. That’s our “now focus”—what AI can do today effectively.
Our “next focus” looks toward where we think AI is going in the next few years and what we believe it will be able to accomplish. And in “horizon three,” we look at areas where CHOP is uniquely positioned to conduct Research and Development and develop our own AI algorithms, especially for advancing pediatric care. It requires a top-down and bottom-up approach because leaders may be aware of where AI is being successfully deployed in other health systems, the trends, while the frontline has insights into the real pain points we need to address.
Anthony: Staying current with AI capabilities as they evolve seems challenging. How do you make sure you’re not falling behind?
Shakeeb: That’s where governance comes in. Our AI Governance Council is a critical safeguard and multidisciplinary, including legal, compliance, privacy, security, and information security. This group evaluates new AI functionalities in a systematic way, so we don’t chase the latest shiny object. We want to stay aware of advancements in AI, pilot new tools, measure their efficacy and impact, and then determine plans for scaling. In healthcare, deploying AI that isn’t robust or safe, particularly in clinical settings, can be detrimental, so a strong governance structure is essential.
Anthony: Help me understand something—AI is not one thing, right? There are models like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Claude, and each could yield different results. How do you approach this diversity in AI?
Shakeeb: AI is indeed broader than just generative AI (GenAI), though they’re often conflated. AI includes technologies like deep learning, machine learning, predictive analytics, natural language processing (NLP), and computer vision. At CHOP, for example, we have our own customized tool which is deployed on a secure, HIPAA-compliant cloud computing platform. It uses the same underlying model as ChatGPT but is configured specifically for our workforce, making it secure and HIPAA compliant.
We also work with various external CHOP system and software partners – such as our electronic medical record (EMR)to pilot GenAI-based capabilities, such as auto-drafting responses to patient messages and note summarization. We were the first organization in the country to scale the patient messaging functionality to all clinicians, and we’re now collaborating on note summarization and text summarization capabilities.
Anthony: Tools like ambient listening could help clinicians document encounters. But users need to remember that they’re still responsible for reviewing and owning the final notes, correct?
Shakeeb: Exactly. We have a “human in the loop” approach, which means that clinicians are responsible for reviewing AI-assisted notes, similar to how they’d review notes written by a medical scribe. The AI can assist, but the responsibility ultimately lies with the clinician.
Anthony: You have a background in finance, which helps with understanding ROI, especially for costly technologies like AI. How critical is financial fluency in your role?
Shakeeb: It’s very important. My background in finance provides value in evaluating ROI from various perspectives, such as hard dollar savings, efficiency gains, and productivity improvements. We use a mix of hard and soft ROI measures, recognizing that some initiatives impact our bottom line directly, while others reduce staff burnout or improve patient care quality. Our CFO and I agree that not every initiative needs a hard dollar ROI; some, like improving clinical quality, are mission-aligned and valuable on their own.
Anthony: What’s your approach to learning clinical workflows, especially without a clinical background?
Shakeeb: It takes a great team. Our teams at CHOP focus on being visible and present to our customers, often rounding on the floor to see pain points firsthand. Personally, I’ve worked in various healthcare IT roles, from disaster recovery and EMR implementations to analytics, which gave me valuable exposure to clinical thinking. Our CMIO, VP of Clinical Applications, and nursing informatics teams are deeply embedded in day-to-day workflows, bringing back insights that help us deliver real value.
Anthony: Lastly, what’s your best piece of advice for peers at similar health systems?
Shakeeb: Focus on solving problems rather than implementing technology for technology’s sake. For our digital transformation, we measure success by the business and clinical outcomes that matter to the organization, not by new technology metrics. A CIO has a unique view across the organization and a responsibility to show the strategic value technology can provide.
Anthony: Thank you so much for your time today, Shakeeb. I really appreciate it.
Shakeeb: Thank you, Anthony. It’s been a great conversation.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:28 — 20.9MB)
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