Cedars-Sinai Experts Teach Teams How to Use Artificial Intelligence for Innovation

Sahira Marootian, a compensation manager at Cedars-Sinai, considers herself an early adopter of artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT but says that knowledge hasn’t always made her day-to-day work more efficient.

Her outlook changed after Marootian participated in the Cedars-Sinai’s recent Prompt-A-Thon event. 

After six hours of hands-on experience building an AI-driven product—with coaching from Cedars-Sinai experts—Marootian said she feels more prepared to use AI tools to improve workflows and solve problems.

And during the Prompt-A-Thon, Marootian’s human resources team developed a tool that helps write job descriptions while following Cedars-Sinai’s tone, style and compliance needs.

“My hope in the Prompt-A-Thon was to raise my comfort level with artificial intelligence and eventually incorporate it in areas that would help our leaders with key business processes,” Marootian said. “I really appreciated that we leveraged artificial intelligence in a way that fostered creativity in addressing issues and challenges we are navigating as an organization.”  

The Prompt-A-Thon included representatives from every corner of the health system, from clinical informatics and digital strategy to emergency medicine, and performance improvement.

At the event, participants worked alongside technical coaches and created their own custom AI prototypes, then optimized the solutions through several iterations of improvements and developed roadmaps for expanding the tools for broader uses. They then developed “pitches” to showcase what they developed to a panel of judges.

“Our big bet for AI is on our people,” said Mouneer Odeh, MA, inaugural chief data and artificial intelligence officer, who led the event. “We are eager to train our colleagues so they can use AI technology to solve their own problems, because they understand those challenges better than anyone and are most motivated to use AI to make their work experience better and more productive.”

Each team presented its solution to a panel of judges that evaluated each team on their demonstrated understanding of artificial intelligence, a thoroughness-of-prototype evaluation, potential impact of protype and overall clarity of presentation. 

The winning team came from performance improvement with the development of a prototype called Pathways for Results, Improvement, Mastery, and Excellence (PRIME). The prototype aims to speed up curating educational materials for different audiences and learning objectives.

Although Marootian wasn’t part of the winning team, she said the event was a win for all.

“I see Cedars-Sinai rapidly moving to open the door to innovation, which will positively impact our workforce and our patients,” Marootian said. “One of the reasons I love working here is the consistent focus on innovation and creative thinking in addressing issues. The Prompt-A-Thon was a true representation of how we show up as an organization.”

Read more on the Cedars-Sinai Newsroom: Cedars-Sinai Announces Informatics Leadership Appointments