El Camino Health's EHR AI Use Jumps 500% in Two Months
El Camino Health, a system rooted in Silicon Valley and drawing patients from the region's tech industry, has flipped its approach to artificial intelligence. Rather than piloting individual tools, the Mountain View, Calif.-based system turned on every AI feature available in its electronic health record. The result, according to Becker's Hospital Review, was a 500% increase in AI usage inside the EHR over two months.
CIO Deb Muro calls the strategy going 'AI-powered.' The logic: broad activation exposes clinicians to capabilities like ambient documentation, drafting, and summarization in their normal workflow, rather than gating them behind narrow trials. Familiarity and convenience drive adoption faster than cautious, feature-by-feature rollouts.
The move reflects a wider shift among health systems moving from AI experimentation to enterprise deployment as EHR vendors embed more generative features natively. The open question is whether usage growth translates into measurable gains in clinician time saved, documentation quality, and burnout, the outcomes that justify the spend.
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