Rural Hospital CIO's 2-Currency Test for Every AI Bet

For a critical access hospital in rural Iowa, a bad technology bet is not a line item to write off. It is staff hours and dollars the organization cannot get back. That reality drives how Mahaska Health CIO Bob Berbeco screens AI proposals, according to Becker's Hospital Review.

Berbeco measures every AI investment in two currencies: time and money. The problem is not a shortage of AI tools, he said, but deciding which ones justify the resources when both are tightly constrained. Each proposal has to show it will save one currency without burning through the other. A tool that trims clinician time but balloons costs fails the test, as does a cheap option that adds work.

The framework reflects a broader squeeze on smaller and rural health systems, which face the same flood of AI pitches as large academic centers but with far less margin for error. For them, disciplined, ROI-first evaluation is less a strategy than a survival requirement.