Why People, Not Just Technology, Will Determine the Success of AI in Healthcare

May 28, 2025 – Introducing new technologies—especially those driven by AI—can disrupt established workflows, challenge existing roles, and strain organizational relationships in unforeseen ways. As a result, the most successful healthcare organizations will be those that look beyond the promise of the tools themselves and focus on how people interact with them, according to a recent report from human capital advisory firm FMG Leading. Understanding the human side of transformation—the expectations, habits, and values at play—is essential for navigating both the potential and the pitfalls of technological change.

For example, FMG Leading explained that healthcare leaders who deeply internalize the interplay between people and new technologies will more clearly recognize the importance of making strong use cases for adoption, alleviating employees’ potential fears, and driving robust change management to combat inertia and resistance.

“These efforts will prevent entities from joining the ranks of unsuccessful or suboptimal implementations that pervade the healthcare industry,” the report said. “What’s more, leaders who understand how people and technology best work together are better poised to insert their own wisdom and experience into investment and implementation processes. They’re more capable of seeing past trendy one-off tools in favor of those that serve as real strategic levers, bringing organizations closer to becoming highly effective, efficient, and sustainable healthcare delivery systems.”

Fundamentally, today’s transformational moment for healthcare is as rooted in people issues as it is in technology issues, necessitating human capital-oriented approaches that allow organizations to fully maximize the opportunity, according the FMG Leading report. It’s not the technology’s ability to work. It’s the people’s ability to work the technology.

Bridging People and Tech

Healthcare leaders who succeed in shifting their thinking —recognizing the essential, often overlooked need to focus on the human beings interacting with new technologies —occupy an enviable position in today’s tech adoption race, the FMG Leading report explained. “Yet they continue to require guidance and support to translate their refreshed perspective into tactical approaches,” it said. “Experts in this space will rightly insist that contextualized analysis and bespoke planning is required to best meet the unique needs of individual healthcare organizations, yet the majority of entities adopting AI and other tools can benefit from the following actionable strategies that help bridge people and tech.”

FMG Leading notes that in order for those working in healthcare to internalize, accept, and fully utilize new and emerging technologies, they need to deeply understand what’s driving their organization to adopt them in the first place. This requires more than a one-off email or standard communications cadence; it demands that top leaders deliver a compelling, authentic, consistent narrative that allows their people to believe, comprehend, and appreciate the rationale behind the implementation— the all-important “why.” FMG Leading lays out the following:

Do – Harness the power of storytelling. Take every opportunity to remind your team why the organization is embarking on this change, focusing on its service to the organization’s mission, to help people understand its big-picture impact.
Don’t – Tell an AI story. Instead, tell a value creation and impact story that depicts the technology as merely a tool and a means to an end, the end being the creation of value and clinical impact.

The New Race for Talent in Life Sciences and Healthcare

The life sciences and healthcare industries are experiencing unprecedented growth, creating intense competition for top-tier talent in an increasingly complex and tech-driven landscape. As the demand for highly specialized roles rises—spanning biotech, data science, and digital health—organizations must rethink their leadership strategies to stay ahead. At the forefront of this evolution, Mattson & Company/GMiQ is helping clients navigate shifting hiring dynamics, longer recruitment timelines, and the growing importance of employee value propositions, succession planning, and leadership fit in an era where agility, innovation, and cultural alignment are more critical than ever.

Remember. Any blanks in your change narrative will be filled in by your team, whether right or wrong, so be sure to fill in any and all gaps.

Focus Technologies on Areas of Greatest Impact

“With vendors selling every tech-enabled solution under the sun, healthcare leaders must focus their organizations’ attention and resources on tools that matter most from a big-picture perspective,” the FMG Leading report said. “That requires them to identify and select innovations that will have the most meaningful impact on organizational performance and outcomes, taking the strategic lead on these efforts even if they’re still educating themselves on the technologies.” FMG Leading lays out the following:

Do – Develop a custom rubric to guide your organization’s tech investments. Consider impact on quality of care, patient experience, employee experience, financial benefits, and alignment to your organization’s strategic goals.
Don’t – Allow yourself to be overinfluenced by vendors, peers, and pundits “shouting the loudest” about trending innovations.
Remember. The addition of technology will fix few organizational problems alone. Instead, it should prompt an examination of root causes of processes and structures requiring improvement.

Make Implementation the Starting Point, Not the End Goal

“While healthcare entities are closely tracking the progress of their AI implementations to ensure solutions are delivered on time and on budget, the work is not in any way complete when the implementation itself is finished,” the FMG Leading report explained. “Rather, this juncture marks the starting point at which organizations and teams must focus on realizing key improvements and enhancements in order to make the tech investments worthwhile.” FMG Leading lays out the following:

Do – Create measurement systems that capture the implementation’s ongoing big-picture impact, allowing data to verify successes, guide potential adjustments, and influence future decision making.
Don’t – Overemphasize short-term implementation targets. Stay focused on the organization’s most important objectives and communicate them often to your team so they maintain the optimal perspective.
Remember. AI and other technologies only enhance value when they ladder up to organizations′ most important goals.

Consider the Systemic Impact of Technological Changes

“Like many healthcare interventions, technologies have the ability to solve problems while creating new ones,” the FMG Leading report said. “Implementations that don’t account for this may leave entities exposed to a variety of unexpected, significant challenges unless leaders are proactive about identifying unforeseen implications and connections and addressing them through tools such as workstream design, communication, and training.” FMG Leading lays out the following:

Do – Identify team members who understand cross-functional processes and make sure they are brought into tech implementation projects early with a mandate to ask challenging questions and provide feedback on an ongoing basis.
Don’t – Assume work will continue as usual after implementation. New technologies often require shifts in mindset, behavioral changes, and new skill sets to ensure new tech-driven processes are effective.
Remember. Think enterprise over department, keeping top-level strategy, attention, and efforts holistic.

Meet Your People Where They Are

“Keep in mind that while top leaders spend extensive time and energy contemplating the wisdom of changes before driving them forward, employees in organizations engaged in transformations are granted little such runway,” the FMG Leading report said. “Intellectually and emotionally, they’re playing catch-up with the C-suite and board. As a result, leaders must offer patience, understanding, and highly tailored communication and direction to create and enhance alignment.” FMG Leading lays out the following:

Do – Make sure you’re conveying transformation information in plain, jargon-free terms that employees across the workforce can understand and embrace.
Don’t – Assume people can automatically make space in their days to learn new systems and processes. Consider modifying schedules and targets temporarily to allow your workforce to best adjust.
Remember. AI remains the stuff of science fiction in the imaginations of individuals in the U.S. and across the world. Many harbor real fears of this technology and what it means for their jobs and the future.

Leading Your Organization Through this Transformational Moment

“With the competing priorities faced by CEOs and COOs, it’s tempting for them to delegate much or even all of their tech implementation efforts,” said the FMG Leading report. “Yet the gravity of this moment requires their active participation and leadership across all stages of the adoption work, from shaping the narrative to outlining critical success factors to communicating the importance of the change.” FMG Leading lays out the following:

Do – Ensure top leaders openly sponsor and endorse tech and AI evolutions in written communications and town halls, illustrating that changes have the support of organizations’ most influential decision makers.
Don’t – Fall prey to the risk of “death by papercuts,” allowing too many small issues or asks to add up in people’s minds. Instead, ensure changes are bundled and organized so they represent the least onerous mental hurdles.
Remember. Today’s tech-driven transformations are enterprise issues not IT issues, requiring the leadership of those greenlighting the change.

5 Key Human Capital Advice for Healthcare Leaders

1. Emphasize sense of purpose. People who opt to work in healthcare often describe their job as a calling, according to the FMG Leading report. “They’re motivated to be of service and provide help to others at a time of need,” it said. “Leaders and organizations that tap into this sense of purpose see higher levels of engagement among individuals and teams, improving employee retention and productivity.”

2. Keep teams grounded. “Amidst today’s constant state of change, it’s all too easy for people to lose their bearings, and with that, the ability to prioritize their limited attention and efforts,” the report said. “Leaders can help team members stay highly focused by taking advantage of every opportunity to ask and answer three key, grounding questions: (1) Who are we? (2) Where is here? (3) Where are we going?”

3. Don’t fear the “C” word: Culture. While leaders often mistake “culture work” as individual off-sites and happy hours, these efforts—done well— intentionally shape workplace behaviors to support big-picture strategy, the FMG Leading report explained. Healthcare leaders that stay focused on their cultures will thus strengthen the ability of their people to meet their organizations’ most pressing demands.

4. Clarity starts at the top. “In an industry like healthcare that must prioritize multiple objectives (i.e., patient outcomes, financial health), it’s common for misalignment to create challenges at the very top,” the FMG Leading report said. “Members of healthcare C-suites must ensure they have clarity among themselves in order to advance a clear strategy that people across organizations are equipped to support.”

5. People problems are business problems. Amidst healthcare’s long history of challenges, some have been traditionally viewed as less urgent than others, according to the FMG Leading report. It said that leaders accustomed to deprioritizing people issues must quickly reckon with a new reality: challenges centered on human beings are not just people problems but business problems.

To read the full FMG Leading report click here!

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief and Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor  – Hunt Scanlon Media