AdventHealth embraces AI across the enterprise
As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to transform industries, healthcare is experiencing a rapid evolution in how technology is leveraged to improve patient outcomes, streamline operations and enhance the overall care experience. Rob Purinton, chief AI officer at AdventHealth, sat down with us at Becker’s CEO + CFO Roundtable to share his unique perspective on the growing role of AI in healthcare, the strategic priorities of AdventHealth and the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
A new role for a new era
Rob Purinton’s appointment as chief AI officer marked a significant milestone for AdventHealth, a system that operates over 2,000 care sites across nine states and serves more than 8 million patients annually.
“My role as Chief AI Officer is new this year, and one that I’m honored to serve in for the organization where I’ve worked for 20 years,” Purinton explains. “I view this role as a continuation of an ongoing mission to streamline, to standardize and to help our organization become a better value proposition for our communities, for our patients and for our purchasers.”
With a background in computer science and lean process engineering, Purinton maintains a sharp focus on streamlining processes and eliminating waste – an approach he sees as essential for healthcare’s future.
Strategic priorities: Vision 2030 and the role of AI
AdventHealth’s Vision 2030 strategy sets ambitious goals for consumer-focused experiences, robust clinical outcomes, financial stewardship and population health management. Purinton notes that while AI is a powerful accelerant to process improvement and overall quality, the health system’s core goals remain unchanged.
“AI is an accelerant to a number of our strategic goals,” said Purinton, “For example, in clinical outcomes, we know that AI can help some of our clinicians make better diagnostic decisions by augmenting their clinical intelligence with predictive algorithms. It can generate time savings back for our outpatient providers, so they spend less time writing notes, less time sitting down with fingers on keyboards, documenting in the chart and more time assessing patients, dialoguing with them, planning care and then helping them feel comfortable with their diagnosis.”
The pace of innovation: Faster cycles, higher expectations
Healthcare has traditionally been conservative in adopting new technologies, but Purinton, like many healthcare leaders, notes a dramatic shift with AI.
“Everything has sped up with AI,” Purinton said. “Fast forward to 2025, you wouldn’t dream of writing any sizable piece of software without using AI for a big part of it. And that means the cycles between this generation of software and the next, they’re getting shorter and moving faster, so everything’s speeding up.”
Purinton notes that the accelerated pace of solution development means providers must become more agile and nimble in their operations. He points to faster learning cycles, more robust pilot experiments and defining success measures as essential operational enablers for AI-powered process improvement.
Balancing innovation and stability
As AdventHealth navigates the balance between adopting cutting-edge solutions and maintaining operational stability, Purinton acknowledges the sizeable challenge that presents.
“It’s really hard for an incumbent to completely transform into an AI native company,” said Purinton. “I think for many incumbents, the goal should be to not be the slowest gazelle in the herd. So, you don’t need to outrun the fastest one. You just need to not get beat by the slowest one.”
Purinton stresses the importance of responsible innovation with AI, noting that maintaining patient and caregiver trust in the institution is a paramount concern. But he also acknowledges that stakeholders expect them to innovate just as fast as they see the rest of the world innovating and that it can be a challenging balance to maintain.
AI governance: Responsible and rapid
Responsible, ethical governance is central to AdventHealth’s AI strategy, according to Purinton. He says AdventHealth has created a two-level governance structure with an AI governance committee composed of executives as well as a technical group that meets weekly. Together, the two groups gauge and evaluate AI technologies and solutions to determine their relative levels of risk and reward.
“We’re applying all of the responsible AI best practices,” said Purinton, “So, from NIST, the National Institute of Standards of Technology, new standards from the Joint Commission and others. We’re very focused on a fast cycle time for those evaluations and then creating strong feedback loops.”
Transforming the revenue cycle workforce
One area widely seen across the industry as ripe for AI transformation is the revenue cycle, says Purinton. He explains that many aspects of the revenue cycle, such as authorization, assisting with documentation and managing denials present significant opportunities for AI agents to improve efficiency. He believes that adopting AI can also help tackle healthcare’s perennial administrative workforce shortages by automating tasks that do not add value. This shift would allow organizations to reassign employees to positions that involve more direct patient interaction and support, rather than keeping them in administrative or back-office roles.
A frictionless patient experience
Ultimately, Purinton believes AI should make healthcare experiences familiar and seamless for patients.
“I think overall the word that we’re looking for is frictionless,” said Purinton. “And what we would hope to happen is that it’s seamless and obvious. Taking those experiences and letting AI help to transfer your information from one encounter to the next or make that whole experience just more familiar and comfortable, that’s what we’d expect to really happen with the digital front door.”
Rob Purinton’s vision for AI at Advent Health is focused and crystal clear – to drive responsible, rapid innovation that enhances value for patients, caregivers and communities. As healthcare revenue operations continue to evolve, leaders like Purinton are ensuring that technology serves the mission of care – making it more efficient, effective and patient-centered than ever before.
