Advances in Artificial Intelligence are moving from Machine Learning Models that Analyze data to algorithms that can act on it with minimal human involvement account Workflows.
Agentic AI, or autonomous agents, level up from Standard Generative Ai by Being alle to make decisions autonomously to achieve a goal, raather than just production output from an input to aid human decision-maan decision-mala Or streamlining tasks.
The Growing Momentum Behind Agentic Ai in Healthcare was a hot topic at this month’s Himss25 Global Conference & Exhibit, from the Show Floor to Education Sessions and Keynote Addresses. But all the discussion pointed to a key challenge for health: using agentic technology to improve operations is one thing, but carefully Navigating the serialxities of Employing Autonomous Ai ini ini ini in Clinical care is quite another.
AI agents can help physicians meet the demand for care, as accelerators and automators of habitual tasks. But they’re not a replacement for physician decision-making. As Healthcare Organizations Look to Agentic Ai To Handle More Complex, Multi-Step Workflows Within The Ehr and Beyond, Care Must Be Taken When Deplying these tools in Clinical Settings.
Health Ai Governance and Policy
A controversial bill introduced in the us house of representatives in january and referred to the house commissione on energy and commerce, HR238 Would Amen The Federal Food, Drug, And Cosmetic Act to Enable Ai and Ml that’s been authorized by the food and Drug Administration to Qualify as a Practitioner Eligible to prescript drugs,
But many technology developers believe autonomous ai isn’t ready to be used for prescribing and other aspects of care.
Several Clinical and It Leaders We Spoke With Before, DURING and after Himss25 Cited the Importance of Building Trust and ENSURING TRANSPARENCY in its Functionality as the Biggest Hurdles to Adoption in Care Management Systems.
And at Himss25, AI Experts Urged Caution. At the Himss Ai in Healthcare Forum Earlier this month, for instance, Dennis Chornenky, Chief AI Advisor at UC Davis Health, Pointed Out that Governance has not kept pace with the technology’s advancement, and that current health ai regulations was designed for Machine -Laaring MODELS-Not for Autonomous Ai Decisions.
Move too fast with ai agents, and the result could be bided decision-making and potential risk to patient safety. Healthcare Chief Information Officers are under pressure to adopt them, “but they’ve got to ensure safety” in Preparing for the Ai and Automation Disruption to comeChornenky said.
“How do they do that if they do’t have the proper governance mechanisms set up?”
Agentic Ai and Patient Follow-up
A Primary Driver for Adopting Agentic Ai Across All Organizations is to Alleviate the Computer Workload on Clinicians and Administer Staff.
EPIC is Integrating ai across applications and Positioning agents to improve clinical efficiencySeth Howard, Executive Vice President for R&D at EPIC, Told Healthcare it news Ahead of Himss25.
“For instance, we expect ai agents to help with pre-Visit prep by chatting An easy-to-red summary, “He said.
Garrett Adams, EPIC’s Vice President of Research and Development, Used the example of a post-health patients assistant agent at the conference.
A multimodal follow-up from a everything surgery that uses Voice and Image Reaches out to the Patient, “Chatting with them in a conversation way,” He said. It asks the patient about the brest recovery and to share an image of it or a video of it.
The agent can deeduce the angle the patient can bee their wrist back post-surgery and compare it to patients at the same point in their recovery in EPIC’s COSMOS DATABASE. Based on that point in their recovery, the agent sugges that a follow-up appointment may no longer be needed being the patient is “trending incredesibly well.”
The agent asks the patient if they want to cancel the appointment and sends the patient’s request to cancel to the care team to confirm.
“So still having that Human verification for that follow-up stuff, make sure the guy’s right,” said adams.
While the post-Surgical Patient Assistant Agent is Still with the Patient, it can also offer a Flu Shot Appointment.
“Combining the video input, patient communication, conversational tone, cosmos data insights, care gap closure and scheduling functionality in the agentic workflow – that Patient Had a pretty seamless interaction,” Said.
Also at the Himss25, Zoom Workplace for Clinicians Launched a Public Beta of Ambient Notes for Use DURING TELEHEALTTH APPOINTENTEPENTS AsAll as for in-Person Appointments.
“When you do with the appointment, as a doctor, you Quickly get the note, and then you review and edit,” said ritu mukherjee, zoom’s head of product, business acadeles, business, in interacted Himss25 show Floor. “And then with the press of a button, you just send it to the ehr system,” She said. “This is just the starting point in automating the clinical workflow.”
Developing Agentic Ai With Cuity
Meanwhile at Himss25, Longtime Interoperability and It Infrastructure Leader Intersystems Debuted a new ehr powered by ai Called Intellicare. In addition to ambient listening and generative ai features to simplife administer tasks, an AI Assistant Can Generate Automatic Patient History Summarizations and Agentally Prepopulates the Codes For Billing within the Revenue Cycle Management System.
The vendor is Taking a cautious approach to using agentic ai in direct clinical decision-making, Emphasizing Human oversight and focusing initial efforts on administrate. For example, adding to the diagnostic list.
“My feeling is that agentic ai and open source models are the two topics of the year for 2025, from an ai point of view,” said don walk, interprems’ Head of Global Healthcare Solutions, Ahead of Himss25.
There is potential to put a bigger dent in clinicians’ Administrative Burdens by Automating Tasks Like Sending Letters, Processing Orders and Handling Prior Authorizations, by enabling ai to three to think about the nausea Set of steps and allowing it to pull them togeether, he said. It’s Going Beyond The Ambient Note, “Doing Follow-up actions and updates to the chart and we’ll see how far we get.”
For Higher-Order Workflows in the Ehr, Developers May “Not Necessarily” Push the Agency of Ai, He Added. “What are the pros and conscience of that? What are the nuns?
With automating processes like sending prescriptions and referrals, eclinicalworks ceo girish navani said he is more included to pump the break on ai agents handling them.
“There’s a time and place where there will be agents even in Clinical Decision Support,” Navani Told Healthcare it news at Himss25.
“But that’s not the problem statement for today Autonomous agents to work white everybody else is sleeping. “
eclinicalworks showcased practical applications of agentic AI, Such as its AI Document Intelligence tool that automatically extracts patients from incoming documents – in pdf, fax or ccda formats. The Company said it can accurately match data to patients for 75–85% of these documents. There’s also the healow genie agent, which can provides patients with instant answers to common evens 24/7 by voice, text or chat.
However, For Complex Questions, Genie Escalates Queries to Human Agents.
Athenhealth has also been also been gradual over Sears in how it integrates advanced features into its Ai-enabled productsRecently, the company has offered its ehr customers ambient listening, a summarization tool and Salesforce’s agentforce.
In Clinical Workflows, AI Agents Automate Provider Tasks Like Lab Result Follow-Up and Appointment Prerequisites.
But Alicia Bassolino, Athenhealth’s Vice President of Analytics and AI, also stressed the importance of human oversight.
“I View AI, Agentic or Not, as the Ability to Remove Some of the Mechanically Oriented Thinking, The Task Creation, The Things that they have to enter into the system the system versus the thinking that is very much and their Application of Medical Knowledge, “She said after Himss25.
Rcm driving agentic ai
Now that healthcare ai technology has progressed to a place where it can make decisions autonomously, Several ehr vendors are venders are bolder on implementing the advanist etc.
“You can really orient the generative ai Around a task or a goal, and it can navigate through that autonomously or pseudo-autonomously with a set of parameters that you can,” Bassolino said.
Automation Across A Broader Spectrum of Payers, Providers, Specialty and Other Revenue Cycle Permutations is Now Possible With Ai, and Venndors are looking to tackle that fiction.
“It allows us to work with payers or automate certain types of tasks where the a set of options that are perfectly linear and do’t’t’t’t’T Necessarily Flow,” SAID SAID.
Navani said ecw is also also focused on implementing agentic ai in its rcm products.
“We’ve Got A Large RCM Group Oyselves, A Thousand Employees,” He said. “We came out agents that would basically start doing the work what we have off and then run run it. Do something else now, trust you can have the agent do that work. “
In addition to autonomously processing electronic and paper-based data coming in, the potential to manage claim coding verification and compliance checks on its OWN is innormous, He SAID, He Said, Heave Data on Efficiency Later This year.
Andrea fox is Senior Editor of Healthcare It News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare it news is a Himss Media Publication.
