Johns Hopkins Asks IT Staffers to Brainstorm About AI Innovations

Healthcare Innovation recently wrote about a presentation by Christopher “Topher” Sharp, M.D., chief medical information officer at Stanford Health Care, about efforts there to bring artificial intelligence into clinical use safely, ethically and cost-effectively.

In another example of how innovation around AI is evolving, Rich Mendola, enterprise CIO for Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Medicine, recently launched a challenge for IT team members to help Johns Hopkins adopt and leverage AI. Summaries of a few of the submissions made so far by 16 team members and published on the IT@JH website range from tools for coding, studying, and clinical documentation to solutions that could reduce workload and improve enterprise support. They offer a glimpse of the type of AI innovation bubbling up at many academic medical centers and community health systems across the country. 

Much like Stanford Health Care created a secure environment called Secure GPT where leadership could allow for full experimentation by the whole organization, HopGPT (formerly Hopkins AI Lab) offers members of the Johns Hopkins community secure and easy access to Large Language Models (LLMs) from companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta. Developed by IT@JH, this secure environment mitigates security and privacy risks while ensuring that data remains protected. 

In the AI/HopGPT Challenge, employees are submitting a summary of how they applied HopGPT or another AI tool to add value or efficiency to a body of work within IT. This challenge provides an opportunity for individual contributors to gain visibility, be creative, and have an impact both within and outside the scope of their regular roles.

Although the AI/HopGPT challenge deadline has been extended to March 2, here are the executive summaries of three highlighted proposals:

Sightline FAQ Agent, Alex Quigley & Olga Sankova, Sightline



Sightline is a business transformation program bringing Workday to Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Health System. Workday will also support Johns Hopkins with a unified platform for self-service and administrative tasks in 2027. The team designed and tested a Microsoft Copilot agent using historical program responses and vetted knowledge sources. The agent saves time spent manually digging through spreadsheets or repetitively asking functional experts for answers. It also creates one consistent voice coming from many Sightline representatives to strengthen and professionalize responses. The Sightline FAQ agent is a template for handling Q&A with other complex initiatives supported by large teams.

Clinical Documentation Improvement Scalable AI Project, Ebony Williams, Health IT



Incomplete and fragmented clinical documentation in Epic contributes to patient safety risk, coder and biller inefficiency, lost revenue, and high audit findings. This proposal features a phased, AI-enabled documentation support layer embedded directly in Epic. This solution is designed to improve documentation completeness and clarity in real-time, reduce clinician burden, and ensure the narrative supports accurate coding, billing, and regulatory requirements without making autonomous decisions or disrupting care. This strategic investment safeguards revenue, improves compliance, and creates a scalable platform for ongoing innovation. 

Software Asset Management & Governance Engine (SAGE), Nitin Ale, Enterprise Business Solutions


There is no single system of record for software assets across IT or the enterprise. SAGE (Software Asset Management & Governance Engine) is an AI-assisted intelligence layer that consolidates fragmented software data into a single decision view. It does not alter governance or automate approvals — its purpose is to provide clear, consistent context so teams can make better-informed decisions about purchasing new software solutions. 

After March 2, the IT leadership team will evaluate all the applications they have received and determine next steps for the most highly rated ideas.