Innovation in Colorado’s Rural Hospitals: A Lifeline We Can’t Afford to Lose

Joe Theine, CEO, Southwest Health System | Cortez, Colo.

At Southwest Health System, our hospital is far more than just a building. It is a lifeline for our community. We deliver babies, respond to emergencies, and care for all our neighbors, often when the next hospital is hours away. Yet, we face increasingly tough challenges in meeting the growing needs of our patients and sustaining high-quality care.

Rural hospitals like ours are already stretched thin, caring for members of our community who are uninsured and challenges tied to Medicaid funding cuts. These financial pressures challenge our desire to maintain essential services and invest in improving the health of people who live in our community. These are the cuts we know about.  Unfortunately, more may be looming, at both the state and federal level that will further challenge us. 

In times like these, innovation isn’t just an advantage, it’s essential for survival. At Southwest Health System, adopting new and accessible technologies enables us to work smarter, not harder. Artificial intelligence has helped our providers increase access to care. It helps increase the accuracy of patient’s medical records, reduce errors, speed up reimbursement, and redirect more of our limited resources toward patient care instead of paperwork. Tools that automatically transcribe provider–patient conversations provide our small and dedicated team the efficiency necessary to stretch every dollar further and improve patient outcomes.

Last year, Colorado lawmakers passed the “Consumer Protections for Artificial Intelligence Act” (SB24-205). While the law’s goal is to prevent AI-driven biases that unfairly impact certain groups, a purpose we fully support, it also imposes sweeping compliance requirements and burdensome mandates on those who use AI technology, including the everyday systems that are critical to our operations, care delivery, and workforce.

As this law is set to take effect early next year, rural hospitals like ours face the real risk of diverting valuable time and money away from patient care to meet vague and costly regulatory demands or discontinuing use of these systems all together. This added strain could undermine the very efficiencies AI technology provides and jeopardize our ability to attract and retain providers who ultimately provide care to people in our community.

The upcoming special legislative session is critical. Lawmakers must revise SB24-205 to ensure AI technology continues to support innovation and operational efficiency instead of limiting it and penalizing those who use it. There needs to be clear understanding of what is required of those developing the systems and appropriate levels of disclosure for those using the systems. It is only fair to ensure that AI technology does not lead to discrimination, in line with Colorado’s existing civil rights laws. Patients should know when they are interacting with an AI system in addition to their provider.

The AI technology we use is not replacing our people, it is empowering us to work smarter, save money, and keep our focus where it belongs, on the health of our patients and the well-being of our community.