With a provocative title and top tier speakers, the third panel discussion of the recent Business of Health Care conference offered an insightful and thought-provoking discussion for the 600+ in-person and online event registrants. Produced by Miami Herbert Business School, the 13th annual conference, entitled AI, Elections and the Economy was held on February 16 at the Shalala Student Center on the University of Miami campus in Coral Gables.
The final panel discussion of the all-day program featured five speakers and the topic addressed was How Is AI Transforming Health Care? The panelists were:
Sal Lo
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Jorie Advanced Automation
Eugenio Minvielle
Founder and President
Innit
(L to R) Sal Lo and Eugenio Minvielle
Rizwan Pasha, MD
Chief Medical Information Officer
Microsoft Health & Life Sciences – Nuance
Christopher Salzo
Vice President of Global Information Technology: AI, Data Visualization and Digital Health
Boston Scientific
Brandon Stock
Senior Vice President of Innovation and Strategy
VITAS Healthcare
(L to R) Rizwan Pasha, MD, Christopher Salzo and Brandon Stock
Mr. Minvielle was the first panelist to speak. In his view AI is about assisted intelligence, i.e., helping people make smarter decisions and live healthier lives. Dr. Pasha, an ER physician by training, spoke next. He sees AI as a tool to bring joy back to the care and delivery of medicine. “Empowering the liberation of the human mind,” is the unabashed goal of Mr. Lo’s venture. He sees AI as a force multiplier that allows humans to grow, not be replaced. Mr. Salzo spoke next. From his perspective, AI will improve speed to diagnosis, provide a more personalized health care experience and facilitate the migration from treatment focused health care to preventative care. Mr. Stock highlighted AI’s role as a copilot, a democratizer of knowledge and a problem solver.
Following the opening round of the discussion, panelists were then asked to cite specific examples of how AI is being utilized in their organizations to improve access to care. VITAS Healthcare has deployed Microsoft Copilot on the operations side. Mr. Stock foresees a positive impact on revenue cycle management. Mr. Salzo asserts that his firm is leveraging AI for a two-pronged approach with a focus on product and a focus on efficiency. One example cited by Mr. Salzo is Boston Scientific’s practice of applying AI to stent measurement. Assisting physicians in getting to an ideal stent measurement helps the doctors and improves the patient experience. Mr. Lo asserts that, at his firm, AI can write an appeal letter with supporting documentation. Dr. Pasha then described an AI application where it is embedded in the Electronic Health Record (EHR). This allows the practitioner to maintain eye contact during the patient encounter. By improving the efficiency of the EHR and the quality of the visit, provider burnout is reduced, and the patient experience is enhanced. For example, a health care provider can see that patient who lacks an appointment because the practitioner is not spending an extra two hours at the end of the day updating the EHR. Mr. Minvielle illustrated his firm’s success by describing their new application for diabetic patients. More than 250,000 patients are active on the new app.
Finally, panelists were asked to address the safety and trust issues associated with AI. Dr. Pasha spoke about his organization’s partnership with the federal government and other organizations to create a National AI Assurance Network. This will address bias, which is prevalent in the current AI algorithms, as well as transparency. Mr. Minvielle picked up on the bias concern noting that personalization is key when addressing bias. For example, cardiovascular disease is much different in women versus men. If AI is not adjusting for gender, then the recommendations will be flawed. Mr. Salzo counsels patience. “Don’t rush to market until safety is assured,” he stated. Regarding the bias issue, Mr. Salzo noted that most AI is built in English. Thus, his company is experimenting with different language models to mitigate bias.
Perhaps Dr. Pasha summarized the discussion best when he offered this advice about AI to health care professionals:
“It is the copilot not the pilot. It does amazing things, but it does amazing things wrong. It lies, it makes up stuff. And it does it in a way that you would almost believe it. So, you must be skeptical and know what is happening in the background. You will interact with these technologies in your workplace. Your job is not to trust it completely but to be skeptical. You will need to have some literacy, so you know when it is working well and when it’s not, you’ll know what to do with it.”
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View the program agenda HERE.
View the speaker BIOs HERE.
View the sponsor page HERE.
Learn more about the Miami Herbert Business School HERE.
Editor’s note – This is the third story in the series. You can view the first one here. You can view the second one here.
