By Francesca Mathewes

As new technologies like AI and machine learning change the way that medicine is practiced across healthcare settings, clinical leaders are paying close attention to the skills that will be valued and needed over the next five years.

Four clinicians joined us to discuss the skills they think will be most valuable for physicians to have in the near future:

Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length:

Adam Fritz, DMSc. Chief Clinical Officer at Aria Care Partners (Overland Park, Kan.): Physicians will need to become increasingly comfortable with the rapidly changing landscape of technology and how it integrates into their practices and patient relationships. Artificial intelligence, virtual care, wearables and remote patient monitoring technologies are advancing in ways that offer tremendous advantages to the way we build patient relationships, interact with our populations and treat diseases. They also are having major impacts on how we staff, finance, scale, and operate effective healthcare delivery models within today’s system.

Alon Weizer, MD. Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President, Mount Sinai Medical Center (Miami Beach, Fla.): It is clear that to be successful as physicians, we need to continue to embrace technology. This does not mean jumping on to the bandwagon of every technology solution — especially AI — that is presented to us. The key skill that physicians need as technology and AI evolve rapidly is a better understanding and knowledge of how artificial intelligence actually works. This will allow clinicians to better assess the value of each AI and technology solution presented to them. At Mount Sinai Medical Center, we implemented an artificial intelligence steering committee that includes diverse stakeholders from the enterprise and includes clinicians (nursing, physicians and other providers) to really bring diverse expertise to the table as we consider implementing new technology and AI tools.

A key component of this work was the development of a request for information from each of the vendors we are considering working with. This serves two roles. First, it allows us to evaluate vendor solutions using best practices to both understand the potential value and risks of a solution. Second, this process is iterative as the internal reviewers gain knowledge through reading the RFI. Understanding and embracing technology appropriately will be a key component of success for physicians over the next five years. The other skillset is the human component. Leveraging AI should allow physicians and other providers more time to spend in direct patient care. We have found that implementation of ambient listening technology has accomplished this goal. Instead of typing on a computer to complete documentation, physicians can now be more present during patient encounters. We are coupling that at Mount Sinai with tools that we have provided to local leaders to help support provider behaviors that encourage empathy and elevate the patient experience. Using AI to free up time to be able to fully exercise our human interactions will differentiate physicians in the future.

Eric Alper, MD. Senior Vice President and Chief Quality Officer at UMass Memorial Health (Worcester, Mass.): Adopt and adapt: The ability to more effectively adopt and adapt to new technologies coming into the healthcare space, especially AI, will be increasingly important. Physicians are not known for being early adopters to new technologies or change in general. There is a natural skepticism of new tools until research proves effectiveness and safety, and any change is disruptive to physicians who are already too busy. But many new tools have the potential to substantially improve efficiency and quality of life.

Teamwork: As there is a shortage of physicians in many fields and many graduating medical students have less interest in less lucrative specialties, we will continue to see growth in the use of advanced practice providers and other types of caregivers to supplement the work that physicians may once have done. More than ever, physicians need the skills to effectively supervise the work that APPs do, to let them complement the care that they provide while also assuring that patients receive safe and high quality care. Physicians will likely also need to increasingly work as part of an extended team including other types of resources including remote workers — for example, people who are doing remote vital sign monitoring — and even AI agents who will become an important “member” of the extended care team.

Point of care ultrasound: As ultrasound machines continue to get more portable and less expensive, there’s a good chance that point of care ultrasound will replace the stethoscope at some point in the future. Performing and interpreting ultrasound is something that most physicians are not trained to do, so such skills will favor physicians who are able to adapt to this disruptive technology.

Susan Kaufman, DO. CMO and Vice President of Medical Affairs at Lima (Ohio) Memorial Health System: I would say that the most important skill I would like to see in physicians is the ability to communicate, to teach & explain. Patients can look up a lot of information online and need proper guidance on choices.