Reflections on the American Hospital Association’s Leadership Conference.

The Amer­i­can Hos­pi­tal Association’s Lead­er­ship Con­fer­ence this week was not only a gath­er­ing of the industry’s bright­est minds, but also a plat­form for trans­for­ma­tive ideas in health­care tech­nol­o­gy. Our pri­or­i­ty in attend­ing was learn­ing, lis­ten­ing, and immers­ing our­selves in the lived expe­ri­ences of those at the fore­front of inte­grat­ing arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence into health­care.

The Pulse of AI in Healthcare: Success Stories and Cautions

Each ses­sion I attend­ed radi­at­ed an excite­ment for AI’s poten­tial, punc­tu­at­ed by both suc­cess sto­ries and pru­dent warn­ings. Hos­pi­tal exec­u­tives and ven­dors open­ly shared com­pelling accounts of progress inter­wo­ven with advice stem­ming from hard-won lessons.

One of the most com­pelling nar­ra­tives cen­tered on the rise of ambi­ent lis­ten­ing technologies—systems that unob­tru­sive­ly cap­ture doc­tor-patient inter­ac­tions, tran­scrib­ing and inte­grat­ing them into med­ical records with­out the physician’s con­stant atten­tion to a screen. These tools have been so impact­ful that they have inspired some doc­tors to post­pone their retire­ments, revi­tal­iz­ing their pas­sion for med­i­cine by allow­ing them to focus once again on the human con­nec­tion with their patients. The sto­ries of trans­for­ma­tion were strik­ing: physi­cians, once wary of relin­quish­ing tra­di­tion­al meth­ods, now found them­selves engag­ing more mean­ing­ful­ly with patients, con­fi­dent that pas­sive lis­ten­ing agents would accu­rate­ly record every detail. Speak­ing freely, doc­tors found their com­mu­ni­ca­tion improved, and con­se­quent­ly, so did patient out­comes.

Con­ver­sa­tions with old­er prac­ti­tion­ers revealed a famil­iar arc: ini­tial skep­ti­cism about new tech­nolo­gies, fol­lowed by com­plete adop­tion once the tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits became unde­ni­able. As they saw both their own expe­ri­ences and patient sat­is­fac­tion improve, any hes­i­ta­tions fad­ed. It’s a pow­er­ful tes­ta­ment to the trans­for­ma­tive poten­tial of AI when imple­ment­ed thought­ful­ly.

Oth­er high­lights includ­ed the use of AI agents for admin­is­tra­tive tasks. In one exam­ple, auto­mat­ed sched­ul­ing agents han­dling colonoscopy appoint­ments received high­er feed­back scores than their human counterparts—a tes­ta­ment to the effi­cien­cy and reli­a­bil­i­ty that AI can bring to repet­i­tive process­es. Auto­mat­ed sup­ply chain order­ing pow­ered by AI was anoth­er area of rapid advance­ment, with hos­pi­tals report­ing sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments in both cost man­age­ment and resource avail­abil­i­ty.

Lesson from Failure: Avoid a “Solution in Search of a Problem” 

Yet, through­out the con­fer­ence, a sin­gle warn­ing echoed in every room: “Do not bring AI in as a solu­tion look­ing for a prob­lem.” Time and again, sea­soned admin­is­tra­tors and tech­nol­o­gy lead­ers recount­ed sto­ries where AI was intro­duced with­out clear goals, only to meet with fail­ure. In many cas­es, the lack of agent verification—ensuring that AI sys­tems are gen­uine­ly solv­ing the prob­lems they are meant to address—led to cost­ly mis­steps. It was not uncom­mon to hear that the first, or even sec­ond and third, imple­men­ta­tions of AI failed, pri­mar­i­ly because the under­ly­ing prob­lem had not been ade­quate­ly defined.

This insight is per­haps the most valu­able take­away: suc­cess is not about adopt­ing AI for its own sake, but about deploy­ing it pur­pose­ful­ly to address well-under­stood needs. When the prob­lem is clear, and the solu­tion is tai­lored with user input and ver­i­fi­ca­tion, AI can be a pow­er­ful dri­ver of progress.

Smart Facility Software’s Evolution: Learning from the Past, Preparing for the Future

These lessons res­onate deeply with us at Smart Facil­i­ty Soft­ware (SFS). We rec­og­nize that AI rep­re­sents the future of our appli­ca­tion suite. Cur­rent­ly, we are in the midst of an exten­sive rewrite of our sys­tems, care­ful­ly select­ing new tools not only for improved effi­cien­cy but also for AI com­pat­i­bil­i­ty.
I find myself envi­sion­ing the moment when ES Optimizer’s AI agent becomes an active col­lab­o­ra­tor for our users. The chal­lenge is not only in cre­at­ing an intel­li­gent assis­tant, but in imag­in­ing what mean­ing­ful solu­tions it will offer. This chal­lenge is noth­ing new to us; it mir­rors the tran­si­tions we have nav­i­gat­ed through­out our growth:

  • Tran­si­tion­ing from DOS to Win­dows in the 1990s
  • Sup­port­ing Ipaq hand­helds for thou­sands of clients in the 1990s
  • Devel­op­ing bed track­ing inter­faces in 2000
  • Adopt­ing SQL in 2005
  • Shift­ing to web-based SaaS solu­tions in 2010
  • Build­ing Apple apps in 2010
  • Inter­fac­ing with UV robots in 2015
  • Inte­grat­ing with Meditech in 2023

Our cur­rent soft­ware is marked by bold tech­no­log­i­cal migra­tions and an eager­ness to dri­ve change for the sake of our users.

 

What Defines a Technology Company?

The ques­tion aris­es: what tru­ly makes a com­pa­ny a “tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny”? It is not just the cap­i­tal invest­ed in peo­ple with “IT” in their titles, though that is cer­tain­ly an impor­tant indi­ca­tor. Rather, it is the col­lec­tive abil­i­ty to lis­ten to users, dis­cern their needs, and trans­late those insights into prod­ucts that gen­uine­ly solve real prob­lems.

At SFS, this prac­tice has been at the core of our suc­cess over the past thir­ty-nine years. Near­ly all our users are affil­i­at­ed with a Build­ing Ser­vice Con­trac­tor (BSC) or a hospital’s Envi­ron­men­tal Ser­vices Depart­ment. By con­tin­u­al­ly lis­ten­ing, adapt­ing, and focus­ing on user-dri­ven devel­op­ment, we have remained rel­e­vant and resilient. If we had failed to do so, we would have fad­ed into obscu­ri­ty long ago.

Investment in People and Partnerships

Of course, lis­ten­ing is only part of the equa­tion. Writ­ing the actu­al code—the trans­la­tion of vision into work­ing software—demands skill, expe­ri­ence, and com­mit­ment. We invest heav­i­ly in this process, part­ner­ing for over a decade with ven­dors who are at the lead­ing edge of SaaS rela­tion­al data­base tech­nol­o­gy and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. In fact, one out of every four dol­lars we earn is rein­vest­ed into our tech­nol­o­gy, a sig­nif­i­cant com­mit­ment that has paid div­i­dends in our abil­i­ty to remain at the fore­front of inno­va­tion. Summed over the last thir­ty-nine years, these invest­ments under­score our sta­tus as a com­pa­ny that not only believes in tech­nol­o­gy, but proves its val­ue in the field.

Leadership Rooted in Experience

Our lead­er­ship in tech­nol­o­gy is rein­forced by the exper­tise of Mark Clabaugh, our CIO. Mark brings a deep back­ground in elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing and the­o­ret­i­cal math­e­mat­ics, and was instru­men­tal in devel­op­ing Teletracking’s Bed­track­ing Tech­nol­o­gy before join­ing SFS. He also brings prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence from his time work­ing in hos­pi­tal IT depart­ments, giv­ing him a unique per­spec­tive on the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties our clients face. Mark’s lead­er­ship ensures that our tech­nol­o­gy is not just cut­ting-edge, but also prac­ti­cal, reli­able, and designed to solve real user prob­lems.

Conclusion: Building on a Legacy of Listening and Innovation

Reflect­ing on the AHA Lead­er­ship Con­fer­ence, it is clear that the future of health­care tech­nol­o­gy hinges on the abil­i­ty to learn, adapt, and imple­ment AI with pur­pose. The sto­ries I heard—from ambi­ent lis­ten­ing agents to auto­mat­ed sup­ply chain management—demonstrate the remark­able heights AI can achieve when it is deployed to solve well-under­stood prob­lems. At the same time, the cau­tion­ary tales remind us that suc­cess is nev­er guar­an­teed with­out a clear under­stand­ing of the needs at hand.

As always Smart Facil­i­ty Soft­ware has already been prepar­ing for the next evo­lu­tion. Our his­to­ry of suc­cess­ful­ly nav­i­gat­ing major tech­no­log­i­cal shifts, our invest­ment in top-tier tal­ent and part­ner­ships, and our unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to lis­ten­ing to our users posi­tion us to thrive in an AI-pow­ered future. We do not adopt tech­nol­o­gy for its own sake; we adopt it to make a dif­fer­ence for our users and their patients. That, ulti­mate­ly, is the heart of our lega­cy and our promise for the years ahead.

 

Shawn Wright, Pres­i­dent
Smart Facil­i­ty Soft­ware