How can we, as a healthcare and research institute, prepare for the arrival of AI?

Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) is a leading academic hospital where healthcare, education and scientific research reinforce one another. Precisely because LUMC continuously works on medical innovation, the organisation recognises that artificial intelligence is increasingly influencing how healthcare is organised and delivered.

The potential is significant, yet developments are moving rapidly and touch upon sensitive domains such as ethics, safety and patient trust. This raised the question of how LUMC can best prepare for these developments and what role AI may play within the hospital in the coming years.

The challenge
LUMC wanted to shape its annual plans with a clear focus on the future and therefore sought clarity about the implications of AI for the hospital. The organisation recognised that AI is increasingly playing a role in diagnostics, administration, workflow optimisation and data analysis, but its impact extends far beyond technology alone.

For a university medical centre, the implications also concern the work of healthcare professionals, interactions with patients, the reliability of decision-support systems, and the responsibility that comes with working with large volumes of medical data.

The challenge, therefore, became less of a technical question and more of a strategic one. How do you ensure that staff understand what AI could mean for their work? Which processes could be responsibly automated in the long term? Where does the human factor remain essential? And how do you build an infrastructure that enables innovation without compromising safety and trust?

LUMC sought a shared understanding within the management team so that future decisions would be clear and well substantiated for everyone involved.

The insight
During an inspiration session, we guided LUMC through the most important developments in artificial intelligence — from the practical applications already visible today to the concepts that will shape thinking about AI in the years ahead.

Using examples from healthcare and other sectors, it became clear that AI adds the most value when it relieves staff of repetitive, administrative and error-prone tasks, allowing them to devote more time and attention to patients. This is precisely where AI and humans complement one another: technology provides speed and consistency, while healthcare professionals can focus on human judgment, empathy and more complex decision-making.

The team also discussed the conditions for working with AI responsibly. These include a robust data infrastructure, clear agreements on privacy, and the development of knowledge within teams so that employees understand how AI arrives at its conclusions.

By translating these insights into the annual plans, a future-oriented framework emerged in which opportunities, risks and space for experimentation all gained a clear place.