Envisioning 2050: How AI will transform healthcare – Insights from WHC 2025 Plenary 1

Artificial intelligence is rapidly redefining the future of healthcare. At the World Hospital Congress 2025, plenary 1 “Envisioning 2050: The intersection of AI and healthcare” brought together global leaders from the US, Switzerland, and the Republic of Korea. Together, they explored how AI will reshape clinical care, operations, and patient experience in the decades ahead. Moderated by Sara Siegel, Global Head of Healthcare at Deloitte, the conversation pushed beyond current applications to imagine what healthcare could look like by 2050. 

One message that resonated across all the presentations: AI is not magic, but if it’s deployed responsibly, it can enhance human care and improve outcomes at scale. 

AI-enabled care: More human, not less 

A central takeaway from the panel was that when AI is used thoughtfully, it can increase the human elements of care. 

Tina Freese Decker, President and CEO of Corewell Health (US), shared early results of an AI-powered ambient listening tool that automatically generates clinical notes from patient–provider conversations. The outcome has been transformative. It has reduced clinician burnout, increased appointment capacity, and even improved family life for clinicians. In her own words “AI helped give moms and dads back to their families”.  

However, Tina emphasized that technology alone is not enough. Health systems must invest in data interoperability, ethics, governance, and training to ensure AI enhances rather than interrupts care.  

From more data to meaningful data 

Dr Manuel Dieterle, Team Lead for AI at University Hospital Basel (Switzerland), focused on the reality that clinicians today spend extraordinary amounts of time searching for information, often across many disconnected systems. His team is building an AI clinical assistant that consolidates patient data, highlights relevant insights, and auto-generates clinical documentation, all designed to give time back to clinicians.  

Manuel underscored two pressing challenges: 

• Integrating AI components into a cohesive ecosystem, not siloed tools. 

• Balancing speed and quality, using AI to accelerate low-value tasks while slowing down for decisions that require human intention and empathy. 

The goal: a holistic understanding of the patient, combining text, imaging, signals, and clinical expertise. 

Bridging the digital divide to unlock AI’s promise 

Representing the Republic of Korea’s rapidly digitizing health sector, Dr Sujin Kim of Yonsei University College of Medicine highlighted a crucial but often overlooked reality: the digital divide threatens to limit the benefits of AI. 

Different generations and different populations interact with technology in very different ways. In her hospital, older adults rarely used dedicated medical apps but were comfortable with platforms like KakaoTalk or YouTube. By meeting patients “where they are”, the hospital successfully integrated AI tools for safety, monitoring, and workflow.  

Her main message: AI’s success depends as much on human adoption as on technical performance. Health systems must build digital literacy while designing solutions that feel natural and intuitive. 

AI’s expanding impact: Safety, efficiency, and precision care 

Across the three presentations, some AI use cases already delivering impact were discussed: 

• Ambient clinical documentation: Reducing “pyjama time”, improving patient–provider connection, and increasing capacity. (Corewell Health) 

• AI-supported safety surveillance: Real-time prediction of sepsis and cardiac arrest, improving response times and reducing mortality. (Yonsei University Hospital) 

• Automated clinical summaries and reporting: AI-generated tumour board summaries, discharge reports, and handover notes. (University Hospital Basel) 

Together, these examples show how AI can reduce cognitive load on clinicians and promote safer, more proactive care, while strengthening patient engagement. 

Trust, governance, and ethics: The foundation for 2050 

All speakers stressed that AI’s future impact will be shaped not by technology alone, but by governance: 

• Diverse AI councils can ensure equity, safety, and alignment with mission values. 

• Clear rules of the road help organizations resist the temptation to chase unhelpful technologies and invest where AI solves real problems. 

• Education and reskilling are essential to ensure clinicians remain critical thinkers. 

Rather than replacing clinicians, AI is expected to reshape roles, reduce burnout, and attract workers back into the profession by removing administrative friction. They all agreed that AI will enhance, not replace, clinicians and that new skills will become central to clinical training. 

Patient trust will define the next era of AI 

Patients today may be cautious, but the panellists anticipate a future in which patients ask: “What does the AI say about my condition?” To get there, healthcare providers must: 

• Explain when and how AI is used. 

• Improve health literacy. 

• Communicate findings clearly and empathetically. 

When implemented well, AI can deepen patient understanding and strengthen trust, making care more accessible, transparent, and personalized. 

Conclusion: A future where human compassion meets machine precision 

The session showed an optimistic picture of 2050: one where AI supports clinicians, shortens the distance between patient and provider, predicts illness before it happens, and helps create more equitable, accessible, and human-centred care. 

But the panellists also stressed something that we all need to be mindful about: AI will only deliver on this promise if systems invest in data quality, digital literacy, responsible governance, and rigorous change management.