The era of big data brought a lot of benefits to the healthcare industry, but it wasn’t without its downsides. As healthcare decisions became more data-driven, they also became more standardized. For health tech experts like Chris Hutchins, Founder and CEO of Hutchins Data Strategy Consultants, the shift toward depersonalized healthcare raised some serious concerns.
“For healthcare to be effective, it needs to be people-first,” Hutchins says. “Technology tools can’t be just about numbers and automations. They need to help the people behind the numbers. Technology needs to make things easier for providers facing shrinking budgets, doctors fighting burnout, and nurses helping patients who are anxious about their diagnoses. If it can’t do that, then it doesn’t have a place in healthcare.”
Hutchins is a nationally recognized leader in healthcare analytics and AI strategy, with more than 30 years of experience helping hospitals and healthcare organizations leverage data and technology to improve patient care. Over the course of his career, he has held leadership roles at some of the nation’s most prestigious health systems, including Mass General and Northwell Health, where he guided large-scale analytics initiatives, data governance programs, and AI adoption strategies. He is widely recognized for his thought leadership in responsible AI, operationalizing analytics, and transforming complex healthcare data into actionable insights that improve outcomes and reduce administrative burden.
As the Founder and CEO of Hutchins Data Strategy Consultants, Hutchins partners with healthcare organizations to unlock the full value of their data through ethical, scalable strategies. His solutions ensure technology serves patients, providers, and administrators alike by combining deep technical expertise with a human-centered approach.
“Data only becomes meaningful when it brings people together to act,” Hutchins says. “When it empowers people from different teams to work together with one goal, it becomes an invaluable force multiplier.”
Hutchins helps providers use AI to rehumanize healthcare
As the era of big data played out, Hutchins saw the increased focus on data become a liability rather than an asset. Doctors and other medical professionals were required to gather, organize, and analyze increasing amounts of data, leading many to the brink of burnout. And while more data might ultimately lead to better diagnoses, the burdens that gathering data placed on practitioners made it more challenging for them to give their patients their full attention.
“As healthcare went digital, doctors faced new pressures to address inboxes, dashboards, and an endless flow of messages stacking up faster than they can respond,” Hutchins says. “The new demands triggered an epidemic of burnout in the healthcare industry. It’s not the care that was exhausting doctors, but everything wrapped around it.”
But then Hutchins saw a new technology emerge that had the potential to rehumanize healthcare. Artificial intelligence brought to the healthcare field the capability to automate many of the processes needed to manage data and mine it for insights. If deployed correctly, AI could remove burdens from doctors, giving them more energy to focus on patients.
“AI has the capacity to release doctors from digital drag,” Hutchins says. “When designed correctly, it can free up minutes, sometimes hours, allowing doctors and other clinicians to reclaim the day and restore margin.”
Ambient transcription is an example Hutchins gives of an innovation that can help to rehumanize healthcare. The AI-driven tool captures conversations and turns them into transcripts in real time.
“The time doctors spend typing up their notes is time taken away from their patients, their families, and themselves,” Hutchins says. “AI changes that by powering ambient listening, recording the conversations doctors have with their patients and automatically turning them into notes. It’s a huge step for doctors that gives them more time for focusing on people by giving them a head start on their administrative tasks.”
Hutchins helps providers maximize the return on their AI investments
In addition to being people-first, the solutions Hutchins helps his clients develop are also clinical-first. He delivers data and AI strategies that do more than just add dashboards. They reduce the burden providers face and enable them to maximize the return on their technology investments.
“Too many organizations make the mistake of integrating tools or building dashboards without taking the time to figure out what problem they are trying to solve,” Hutchins says. “They adopt AI because they can, not because they have a plan to deliver solid and sustainable impact.”
To ensure AI delivers high-quality results, Hutchins makes sure to get clarity on the front end by spending time with the people who do the work every day. He knows the real solutions emerge from conversations with the doctors and nurses who are facing the challenges, not from the technical capabilities of the people writing the code for or training AI models.
“If AI is going to rehumanize healthcare — and I believe it can — then it needs to be built around the humans who are making healthcare happen,” Hutchins says. “If we listen more than we build, we will know where we need to go, get there faster, and end up with solutions that care for the people who are caring for the patients.”