Rehumanizing global health care with agentic AI
Summary
Healthcare providers are increasingly adopting agentic AI (AI systems that can make autonomous decisions and handle complex tasks without human intervention for each step) to automate administrative work and patient scheduling, with over two-thirds of providers already using it. Unlike earlier digital tools that added burden, agentic AI can handle nuanced scenarios by retrieving information from expert sources and iterating over time, freeing clinicians to focus on patient care. At Hospital for Special Surgery, AI agents reduced insurance claim processing from weeks to automated monthly handling of 1,100 claims, and now manage patient scheduling and triage 24/7 through conversational AI.
Solution / Mitigation
For high-stakes AI decisions, the source explicitly describes safeguards at HSS: 'Sensitive, complex, or uncertain scenarios are escalated to human specialists. Every decision made by the AI agent is auditable and human staff can step in at any point.' The source also notes that 'providers to ensure they have these sorts of guardrails embedded into systems' and mentions HSS uses 'an AI subcommittee' to filter all technology decisions. Additionally, 'Patient data is kept secure and the system is trained on all HSS protocols, policies, and care pathways.'
Classification
Affected Vendors
Original source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/06/02/1137827/rehumanizing-global-health-care-with-agentic-ai/
First tracked: June 2, 2026 at 08:00 AM
Classified by LLM (prompt v3) · confidence: 75%