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DUBLIN, Ohio — Adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) has continued to increase across the healthcare industry in far-ranging ways—from simple summarizations of patient visits to disease diagnostic support, warehouse automation, and supply chain visibility. According to a study by McKinsey, more than 70% of respondents from healthcare organizations, including providers, payers, and health care services and technology groups, said they are now using or testing AI tools in their work.
More than five years ago, Cardinal Health began building a foundation for automation and AI and in 2021, the company formed an AI Center of Excellence to identify promising use cases for the application of AI technologies, and to test whether potential solutions deliver anticipated results. To learn more, we spoke with Anagha Vyas, who, as director of artificial intelligence, leads Cardinal Health’s AI Center of Excellence. She and her team of data scientists work to accelerate the use of AI in digital and commercial technologies.
“With the prevalence of new AI tools growing exponentially, we believe AI has great promise across healthcare,” Vyas said. “It has the potential to positively impact everything from clinical productivity and patient experience to optimizing inventory management, reducing waste and automating processes all along the healthcare supply chain.”
The AI Center of Excellence partners with business leaders across the company to continue monitoring emerging trends and study the successful implementation of AI solutions across the industry. Their focus: using AI in ways that can help humans work smarter and better.
Vyas said, “We know that human oversight is critical to AI’s success; that philosophy has long driven our use of all technologies at Cardinal Health, from customer-facing solutions to automation in our distribution centers. We’re very focused on balancing the promise of AI with its responsible use to deliver the greatest possible value.”
This balanced approach supports incremental progress and empowers the team to make steady, meaningful improvements rather than revolutionary breakthroughs. From leveraging AI to provide actionable insights to customers that save time and costs, to enabling a streamlined customer service experience, these solutions make a real difference in the day-to-day lives of providers and patients and pave the way for future advancements.
As the AI Center of Excellence works to optimize AI implementations, they also seek to mitigate risk in parallel. Here are some of the ways they are doing so.
Using AI to solve customer problems and advance core capabilities
At Cardinal Health, every potential AI project begins with an unmet need tied to customer success. Before applying AI technologies, the team ensures the customer or business problem warrants an AI-first solution, that the data is “AI-ready,” and that AI fits into the customer experience in a desirable way.
Cardinal Health has deployed a number of AI solutions that address challenges our customers face. For example, advanced automation technology and robotics in distribution centers help ensure that frontline workers are better able to pick, pack and ship customers’ orders with quality, speed and accuracy. Combining AI and robotics within our facilities also helps optimize inventory storage space and inventory management and boost employee productivity and efficiency.
“AI also allows us to more effectively navigate conditions that impact product availability in the supply chain, and to provide a higher level of service to our customers,” Vyas said.
For example, AI and machine learning-enabled planning and inventory solutions give our supply chain leaders visibility into inventory data across the supply chain, so they know what quantities of products we have at any given time, and have insights into customer orders and any fluctuations in demand, so that they can act proactively to maintain proper product levels in our distribution centers to ensure that we can meet customer needs.
The AI Center of Excellence engages partners across the enterprise to accelerate the development of impactful AI solutions. Business leaders collaborate with the team to brainstorm potential AI solutions, explore the art of the possible, identify risks and rewards, and ultimately determine the extent to which AI can solve businesses or customers’ challenges effectively.
Responsible use of AI sets the foundation for innovation
The AI Center of Excellence has worked across the company to develop governance for the responsible use of AI. “Our north star is simple,” Vyas said. “We aim to integrate AI responsibly into our processes, ensuring that it serves as a tool for enhancing human decision-making. Our AI policy guides our journey of innovation and ensures that we prioritize safety and accountability.”
For example, the policy lays out clear goals and purposes for AI models and evaluates them in relation to specific use cases and contexts. In creating new AI tools, the team designs and implements security safeguards from the outset to protect against adverse manipulation and preserve the system's intended function.
“By fostering a culture of accountability with innovation, we are committed to leveraging AI to not only advance our capabilities of supporting our customers and the patients they serve, but increasing employees’ capabilities and job satisfaction, and keeping our data secure. It is our responsibility to ask, when do we trust? And when do we trust, but verify? We always must understand the mechanics of the AI behind the tool, so we know it will help us – or our customers – make the right decisions.”
Upskilling employees
Additionally, employee development in AI skills goes hand in hand with AI security, governance and policy, Vyas said. “Because AI is seemingly everywhere within technology, every employee must have some insight into the tools available to them and understand the pros and cons of using those tools. That’s a vital part of preparing our workforce for the future.”
And, while all employees are gaining insights into the basics of the power of AI, the company’s leaders also are committed to investing in a future-ready AI workforce through education and skill-building initiatives. Employees can engage in high-quality AI training from expert partners, participate in on-the-job training through AI project-related work, and access a variety of AI-related short courses online. We also offer an intense, six-month analytics, automation and AI course through our Digital U. This is an accelerated learning program that focuses specifically on automation, data engineering and data science.
“AI and data analytics capabilities are helping drive operations at Cardinal Health, and we continue to refine our approach and strategy to keep pace with rapidly evolving technology,” Vyas said.
She and her team regularly partner internally and with customers to explore and integrate AI solutions to drive efficiency and create new digital experiences in today’s dynamic healthcare landscape.
“It’s incredible to see how players throughout the healthcare continuum are using AI to better understand data and insights, share learnings and work as a collective to utilize AI as a change agent,” Vyas said. “As we make strides in using these technologies responsibly and in novel ways, I believe that working together will allow us to transform healthcare for the greater good, keeping our focus on the patient.”
