In the Loop or On the Loop: The Conundrum of AI Clinical Decision Support

Penn LDI explores how AI-driven clinical decision support (CDS) tools challenge the balance between automation and clinician oversight. Should clinicians be fully in the loop—making all decisions—or on the loop, supervising AI systems as they handle more routine choices?

Virtual Care Integration, EHR AI, and Rural Healthcare

AvaSure CTO Jacob Hansen highlights the growing need for tighter integration of virtual care into EHR systems, strategies for ensuring ROI on AI implementations, and how rural hospitals can benefit from strong governance, pilot programs, and change management.

Health IT Product News Report — September 2025

Recent product updates include Valant’s launch of AI Notes Assist for behavioral health clinicians, TigerConnect’s Transfer module for patient handoffs, and Wolters Kluwer’s expansion of its AI-enhanced UpToDate into the Asia-Pacific region.

PEHRT: A Common Pipeline for Harmonizing EHR Data

A newly released preprint introduces PEHRT, an open-source pipeline that harmonizes EHR data across institutions while preserving privacy. It addresses coding, semantic, and structural inconsistencies that often block multi-institution research.

Why It Matters

• AI decision support balance: CIOs must evaluate whether AI tools add safety and efficiency without eroding clinician trust, autonomy, or creating liability.
• Virtual care ROI: Especially in rural hospitals, investments in EHR-integrated AI and virtual care need clear governance, pilots, and measurable outcomes to succeed.
• Modular upgrades: Vendors are focusing on incremental features (documentation AI, transfer coordination). These deliver fast wins but risk fragmentation without proper governance and integration.
• Data harmonization: Cross-institution pipelines like PEHRT are critical for translational research and AI analytics. CIOs should prioritize semantic consistency and privacy-preserving methods to enable collaboration.
• Governance and change management: Each of these innovations depends on well-run governance, stakeholder engagement, and strong change management structures to avoid failure.