AI Scribe Rollouts with Joey Seliski of Allegheny Health
This is part of our weekly executive insights series where Elion CEO Bobby Guelich speaks with healthcare leaders about their tech priorities and learnings. For more, become a member and sign up for our email here.
Role: Director, Technology Strategy and Digital Health
Organization: Allegheny Health Network
Can you provide a quick overview of your role?
In my role I focus on strategic, technology solutions to address top problems for our patients, members, clinicians, and operators. In our organization, we look to the EMR first, but anywhere our needs don’t align with their roadmap I help explore market solutions, including areas like patient engagement, revenue cycle AI, and point-of-care AI.
What major focus areas or initiatives are you working on?
We’re exploring tech initiatives in four main buckets:
Using AI to support clinicians, such as ambient documentation or AI-assisted CDS in radiology.
Digital infrastructure work to ensure it’s easy to integrate new digital tools and efficiently capture data and measure ROI.
Expanding asynchronous and remote care capabilities.
Partnering with operations to redesign workflows using technology, such as virtual command centers for centralized hospital monitoring.
We also focus on equity in all our initiatives. Our key 2025 priorities include call center AI solutions, revenue cycle automation, digital nursing and SmartRoom capabilities, and scaling the rollout of Ambient Intelligence across our network.
Let’s dive into the ambient AI work you’re doing. How has it performed?
Ambient intelligence has been quickly adopted because it solves a critical issue: clinician burnout and documentation burden. It’s particularly effective for complex patient visits, like new patient consultations in specialties like primary care, psychiatry, and orthopedics, where capturing a detailed history is crucial.
However, it’s less necessary for follow-ups or routine visits, where existing EMR workflows suffice. We’re also seeing it evolve beyond note generation to include features like diagnosis suggestions, streamlining coding and reimbursement.
Our approach avoids pilots with limited scope; that word “pilot” often implies this solution is going to go away. Instead, we aim to do our due diligence upfront and then roll out as broadly as possible to ensure we learn quickly and are ready to scale the solution across the enterprise.
What challenges or learnings have you encountered with that broader rollout?
One observation is that adoption varies due to the degree to which notes can be personalized. Some clinicians have strong preferences for their note formats, and if vendors can’t match these preferences they aren’t as willing to adopt the solution. We’re seeing vendors gradually enabling more customization though, so this is improving.
We’re also seeing differences in how effective solutions are for particular sub-specialties. Some are able to appropriately generate high quality documentation in very niche areas, like ENT and Rheumatology, while others output notes that treat these encounters as if they were conducted by a primary care physician. So the degree to which solutions can effectively handle subspecialties is a big driver of adoption amongst clinicians in these areas.
How are you assessing ROI for ambient intelligence?
While clinician well-being is our highest priority, this is difficult to measure in the short term. Initially, we’re focusing on more measurable outcomes like coding accuracy and encounter volume. Over time, we expect benefits in clinician well-being, burnout reduction, and workforce retention to materialize. These longer-term metrics, like turnover rate reduction, will take a year or more to evaluate.
It can be helpful to design your business case this way: What are the value drivers you expect to see in the first year, and then what do you expect over a three to five year period as the solution is adopted broadly?
Any general lessons for AI or technology adoption based on your experience?
There are a few key points I’d emphasize:
Take a portfolio approach, balancing immediate and long-term ROI: For example, pair AI solutions with quick financial returns, like revenue cycle automation, alongside workforce-focused tools like ambient solutions that have a longer payback period.
Know leadership priorities: Understand the goals of leaders across departments, from supply chain to care delivery, and proactively match technology solutions to their needs. Don’t simply wait for them to come to you. It’s a mindshift change: from “ticket takers” to “value makers.”
Invest in dedicated implementation teams: AI requires robust support for workflow adjustments and clinician training in order to ensure there’s meaningful adoption and value realization.
Look for vendors taking a platform approach: Avoid point solutions and instead look for vendors that have a clear vision for how their solution evolves into a platform. In this way, you’re ready for market consolidation and can quickly transition workflows from one product to another if warranted.