During the HCI CRS customer day on June 3, two guest speakers delivered an inspiration session. Joop Snijders is one of them. He is Head of AI at Infosupport and has over thirteen years of practical experience with AI. As he puts it himself, he is not a futurist. He shows what is already possible.
He starts his inspiration session by asking the audience whether organizations are capable of meeting the demand for care in 2035 with their current staffing levels. Almost everyone raises their arm with a red card in hand. That is no surprise; we all know that the demand for care is growing and that there are fewer people to meet that demand.
Currently, 30 percent of working time in healthcare is spent on administration. According to Joop, AI can help take over part of that work, so that healthcare professionals have more time left for the client.
63 transfers on Sunday evening
To illustrate what he means, Joop shares a real-life example. At a care institution in the east of the country, every healthcare professional writes a handover at the end of the day. That sounds well-organized, but in practice, it turns out to be different, because everyone writes a handover in their own way. One writes concisely, while another writes half a page of A4 paper.
If you have been on vacation for three weeks, there may be as many as 63 handover messages waiting to be read in order to find out what is going on with clients. The reality is that many healthcare professionals read these messages on Sunday evening, so that they can continue the sessions with their clients well-prepared on Monday.
The institution decides to take a different approach and deploys an AI agent that reads through all handovers and extracts what is relevant, such as whether the client's medication has been adjusted. In this way, an AI agent does the work, creating overview and clarity. Now, the healthcare professionals at this organization only need to spend five minutes on the handover per client after a vacation. And that saves a lot of time and energy, because a healthcare professional no longer has to work on their evening off and can give clients the attention they deserve while well-rested.
What AI is and isn't
In addition to this example, Joop also takes the time to clear up misunderstandings about the use of AI. AI has existed since 1955, and we have been using it in various applications since the 1980s. What you see now with ChatGPT or Copilot is a new generation of that same technology.
The biggest fear is that AI will take over our jobs. Joop points out that with every major technological change, more jobs have always been added. He gives the example that with the rise of the internet, professions such as SEO specialist, web designer, and professional influencer emerged. No one saw that coming at the time.
Following the misconceptions, Joop indicates that it is important for healthcare organizations to start integrating AI applications in the workplace, and that this requires clear direction from management and the board of directors.
Research conducted by Infosupport shows that employees on the shop floor are already making extensive use of AI tools, but that management and the board are lagging behind. This creates friction, because people will find their way via their phone or web browser anyway. If you do not steer this, things will go in all directions.
Does AI make healthcare more human?
Towards the end of his presentation, Joop asks the audience whether AI really makes healthcare more human. Someone from the audience shares that her organization has been using AI to write reports for two years. This saves a lot of time and attention, because the tool listens in during the conversation and writes the report.
Healthcare professionals are no longer typing and listening at the same time. That is exactly what Joop means. A healthcare professional can now focus better on the client because the technology handles the rest.
After forty-five minutes, Joop concludes his inspiration session with three insights. Jobs do not disappear; they change. Deploying AI is a necessity in healthcare because the demand for care is growing while, due to the aging population, fewer people are working in healthcare to meet that demand. And anyone who views this as a sprint is mistaken. It is a route, and that route determines whether you reach the finish line at all.