HIMSS26: Former AMA President Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld Gives Keynote to Kick Off Physicians’ Forum
•February 17, 2026
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Companies Mentioned
Why It Matters
Effective AI integration can reduce clinician burnout and dramatically improve time‑critical patient outcomes, reshaping hospital operations and ROI on health‑tech investments.
Key Takeaways
- •Aidoc processes >200,000 CT scans daily worldwide.
- •AI aims to assist, not overwhelm clinicians.
- •Real‑time alerts can accelerate stroke treatment decisions.
- •1,600 hospitals across 19 countries already use Aidoc.
- •Implementation challenges focus on ROI for CIOs and AI officers.
Pulse Analysis
The HIMSS26 conference, a premier gathering for health‑tech leaders, set the stage for Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld’s call to move beyond AI hype. With two decades building clinical decision‑support tools, Ehrenfeld framed AI as a pragmatic solution to the staffing crisis that hospitals face today. By positioning artificial intelligence as a partner that streamlines workflow rather than a noisy alarm system, he underscored the need for technology that directly eases clinician burden while maintaining patient safety.
Ehrenfeld spotlighted Aidoc’s platform, which now analyzes more than 200,000 CT scans each day, delivering instant triage alerts to physicians. In stroke cases, where every second counts, the system pushes critical images to a care team’s mobile device, potentially preserving millions of neurons and improving discharge outcomes. This real‑time orchestration transforms AI from a passive diagnostic aid into an active care coordinator, bridging the gap between image acquisition and immediate clinical action across 1,600 hospitals in 19 countries.
The broader implication for the industry is clear: successful AI adoption hinges on measurable ROI and seamless integration into existing IT ecosystems. Hospital CIOs and emerging chief AI officers must balance cost, compliance, and clinician acceptance while ensuring that AI delivers tangible efficiency gains. As AI matures into a core component of care pathways, providers that master implementation will gain competitive advantage, reduce burnout, and set new standards for patient‑centric, data‑driven medicine.
HIMSS26: Former AMA President Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld gives keynote to kick off Physicians’ Forum
Dr. Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, board certified in anesthesiology and clinical informatics, is the former president of the American Medical Association and is the global chief medical officer for Aidoc, a clinical AI company.
Ehrenfeld will kick off the AMDIS/HIMSS Physicians' Forum at the HIMSS 2026 Global Health Conference & Exhibition in Las Vegas with the talk, “Opening Keynote Session: From Hype to Healing: Real‑World AI Integration in Clinical Practice.”
“There’s a lot of hype out there,” Ehrenfeld said to Healthcare Finance News on Monday. “There’s so much massive stuff happening with agentic AI, foundation models – our heads are spinning.”
Ehrenfeld was calling from a Milwaukee hospital where he was working.
“I’m seeing patients,” he said. “Everybody rolls up their sleeves. We are just drowning. There are not enough people to go around. The reality is people are exhausted.”
The technology that’s needed has to help make clinician lives easier and must inform clinical decision support.
Ehrenfeld said he spent 20 years building clinical decision support systems.
“We don’t want just a red flag on a computer screen,” Ehrenfeld said.
AI needs to be an asset and not a burden for staff, he said.
Questions remain as to implementation.
“How do we implement these things, so our leaders, CIOs, chief AI officers are getting the most bang for the buck?” he asked.
Ehrenfeld believes Aidoc is one answer. It helps process, on average, more than 200,000 CT scans per day, he said. It’s in more than 1,600 hospitals in 19 countries.
The system also provides triage alerts to physicians and care teams.
A patient suffering from a stroke loses millions of neurons per second, he said. A fast intervention can make the difference between a patient being rolled out or walking out, he said.
“We want to alert the stroke team on their phones, with the key images attached,” Ehrenfeld said.
The real magic comes down to closing the loop using AI as an orchestrator in real time, enabling care teams when there’s a critical finding, he said.
“I see AI becoming an essential care coordinator,” Ehrenfeld said.
Email the writer: [email protected]
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