Hospitals Assn. summit examinesAI integration in health care.

Attorney Julybeth Alicea, president of HR Disruptor, addresses the Puerto Rico Hospitals Association Annual Summit on the use of artificial intelligence in health care.

By THE STAR STAFF

The Puerto Rico Hospitals Association (AHPR by its initials in Spanish) held its annual summit this past weekend on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare, where hospital administrators, doctors, healthcare industry professionals and some 21 experts in the field of AI applications participated.

The event sought to analyze the critical decisions facing healthcare leaders in Puerto Rico regarding the integration of health information technologies and artificial intelligence solutions, with the goal of strengthening informed and responsible decision-making aligned with the regulatory, clinical, operational, and financial challenges impacting hospitals and other healthcare delivery models.

“The healthcare sector was convened to learn about the latest developments and applications of AI aimed at protecting patient health and all related aspects,” AHPR Executive Vice President Pedro González said.

The forum’s various panels analyzed the current state and evolution of the health ecosystem in Puerto Rico based on the lessons laarned during the past year in the adoption of health information technologies and AI, “in order to identify structural gaps, emerging capabilities and critical decisions that will allow the health system in all its delivery models to be positioned for the regulatory, operational and sustainability challenges that lie ahead in 2026,” González added.

Among the topics presented and discussed was “Algorithmic Inference and Decision-Making in Mental Health Clinics,” which emphasized “clinical moderators and epistemological boundaries with the goal of analyzing the use of algorithmic inference and artificial intelligence architectures as support tools in clinical decision-making in mental health,” the AHPR official said.