Artificial intelligence is starting to be adopted across the long-term care industry, for everything from staff and resident recruitment to operational improvement. But a new report suggests that the all-too-common approach of appointing an administrator to oversee AI adoption can fall short.
This is because the “czar-in-charge” approach often fails to capture critical insights gleaned only from frontline workers, according to report author Sowmyanarayan Sampath, executive vice president and chief executive officer for Verizon Consumer Group.
“In developing applied technologies like AI, leaders must identify opportunities within workflows,” Sampath wrote in a Harvard Business Review article. “In other words, to find a use for a new piece of tech, you need to understand how stuff gets done. Czars rarely figure that out, because they are sitting too far away from the supply line of information where the work happens.”
He recommends instead that AI implementation be decentralized, with frontline teams taking the lead. These teams, equipped with operational expertise, can identify opportunities within workflows and drive innovation. At Verizon, for example, Sampath said that rather than top-down decision-making, the firm emphasizes frontline-driven initiatives supported by a center of excellence providing necessary resources.
This alternative approach focuses on harnessing AI across three key areas: operations, network management, and customer care/sales. By leveraging AI, they aim to streamline processes, enhance customer experience, and boost efficiency.
He added that decentralizing AI implementation empowers frontline employees to make informed decisions, which leads to better customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
“We’ve empowered our frontline teams to guide us on how AI is best used to help them reduce cognitive load and provide efficiencies in the way we serve our customers, so that they can focus on human interaction, empathy, and exceeding the customer’s expectations,” he said.
From the July/August 2024 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
