Weekly Business Insights 03/18/2025

Medical centres compete to achieve ‘smart hospital’ status

The “smart hospital” market — a broad term for technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT) and robotics that collate and analyse reams of clinical data to improve care and increase efficiency — will be worth $148bn by 2029, Deloitte, the consultancy, has forecast.

“Smart hospital capabilities will be built around the interaction between the physical building and the patient,” says Frances Cousins, a partner specialising in healthcare technology at Deloitte. “If you [are in] a hospital bed, you might be able to order your food, call your nurse, see the plan of your diagnostics [and] lower the blinds [using your smartphone].”

Cost demands may partly explain why fewer than one in 10 hospitals worldwide are now classified as smart hospitals, Still, most experts believe smart hospitals will become more common over the next decade as health providers seek ways to improve care and operate more efficiently.

Medical centres compete to achieve ‘smart hospital’ status

OpenAI Wants Businesses to Build Their Own AI Agents

In January, OpenAI announced an AI agent called Operator, which can independently browse the internet to do things like buy groceries and file expense reports. And in February, the company announced “deep research,” an agent that can perform more complicated research tasks on the internet—promising to accomplish in tens of minutes what takes humans many hours.

Both those agents don’t offer as much customizability, which OpenAI is betting businesses will want. The startup said it would charge customers based on the number of search queries, actions and data storage that the agents actually end up using, as well as for general AI model use. For instance, a company building a legal assistant agent will be charged $2.50 for every thousand queries a user makes to a knowledge base of past legal cases, according to OpenAI.

To use its AI agent building platform, enterprise developers still need to have a comprehensive technical background, OpenAI said. Developers can use any of OpenAI’s models to power the agents they build, including the model that powers Operator, and can incorporate its file and web search tools

OpenAI Wants Businesses to Build Their Own AI Agents - WSJ

How AI can help hospitals strengthen their financial performance and reduce clinician burnout

Supply costs are another part of the equation. Hospitals face a double whammy of record-high inflation and ongoing shortfalls of drugs, devices, and other essential medical supplies. This has contributed to a significant decline in margins.

Then there are administrative expenses, which in the US account for 30% of total health care costs.4 Much of the administrative burden falls on clinicians, which detracts from the patient care they’re trained to deliver. Administrative bottlenecks contribute to emergency department boarding and delays or missed handoffs along the care continuum. The consequences are costly because they tend to lengthen hospital stays and increase the number of readmissions. These challenges have been compounded with reduced reimbursements due to payer denials and utilization management. At many hospitals, the rise of ambulatory surgery centers has had significant impact on inpatient revenue and elective surgeries leading to lost revenue. Competition with other health systems, telehealth companies, and emerging health players further add to the profit squeeze.

A closer look reveals that organizations face unique challenges at various stages of AI implementation. During the initial phase, the main challenges are identifying the use cases that offer the greatest return on investment and proving AI’s overall business value. As organizations advance and seek to expand their AI initiatives, several other barriers emerge. One is adequate maintenance of machine learning models and ongoing support.

Contract management software plays a crucial role in value-based healthcare organizations by facilitating the management of intricate and evolving value-based agreements. It enhances the ability of these organizations to track adherence to the detailed requirements of value-based care contracts, improve financial outcomes by managing reimbursement rates more effectively, and guarantee the precise and prompt execution of contract terms. This software aids organizations in managing the complexities of value-based payments with an emphasis on patient results and cost-effectiveness.  

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