AI adoption in healthcare organizations: Spheres of development and the virtue of visible value

Despite the significant potential of artificial intelligence (AI), many public healthcare organizations struggle to adopt this technology. Simultaneously, empirical research on the factors that influence AI adoption in public healthcare settings remains scarce. We address this gap with a qualitative study with senior healthcare leaders who hold responsibility for the adoption and development of AI-enabled solutions within two leading National Healthcare Service (NHS) Trusts in the United Kingdom. Drawing upon the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework to make sense of our findings, we reveal nine factors that influence AI adoption. Significantly, we buttress our use of the TOE framework by highlighting how each TOE context can evolve into a sphere of AI development and explore the positively mediating role of a meta-factor that we term ‘visible value’ in that process. Visible value can be explained as the demonstrated or executed positive impact relating to AI adoption activities, where the value can be vividly seen, experienced, agreed upon and, ideally, measured, and helps to drive momentum internally and/or with key external stakeholders. Generation of visible value helps to legitimize and build confidence in continued AI activities. We thus develop existing theoretical resources to advance practical understanding of AI adoption in public healthcare organizations.