"I've never in my career seen the acceleration of technology as fast as what we've witnessed in machine learning during the last two years," said Dale Sanders, executive vice president at Health Catalyst.

Sanders, it's worth noting, has a U.S. Air Force background working on stacked neural networks and fuzzy logic, which used to be called deep learning, as well as serving as the CIO of both Northwestern University and national health system of the Cayman Islands.

"The rate of improvement happening in machine learning," Sanders added, "is way beyond what Moore's Law is to chips."

Hospitals already deploying AI
As the next generation of both patients and caregivers – including clinicians, doctors, nurses, specialists, even executives and administrators – starts taking a foothold in the healthcare workforce, hospitals looking for a first-mover advantage already know that AI is on the verge of becoming a critical component across the entire organization, and not just IT.

"AI and machine learning are exciting opportunities for us to accelerate," Carolinas HealthCare Chief Information and Analytics Officer Craig Richardville said. "To be successful you have to understand how that will fit within your market and your patient population, and you have to be knowledgeable about how to use it."