I just came back from Nashville where I had a terrific time attending ViVE. Though I have been a speaker and attendee at quite a few HLTH events over the years, this was my first time at ViVE. In addition to moderating a panel, I also hosted HLTH’s Executive Video Series and had the great pleasure of interviewing 12 extraordinary health innovation experts.
The major theme we explored was the power and promise of AI in healthcare. Joe Petro, Corporate Vice President of Health and Life Sciences at Microsoft, spoke about how Microsoft is deploying artificial intelligence to interpret X-rays, CTs and other imaging modalities. Not only are these advancements enhancing patient care, but they are, in his words, rekindling the joy of practicing medicine. That’s because these tools are assisting clinicians with their day-to-day tasks and freeing up their time to interact with and care for patients and families.
One such time-consuming task is medical documentation. I interviewed Zach Lipton, Chief Scientific and Technology Officer at Abridge, which was named as one of TIME’s best inventions of 2024. He explained how ambient listening works in leveraging speech and language models to document the clinical visit. During the visit, doctors can look at their patients instead of a computer screen, and after the visit, they immediately have a draft of their note instead of starting from scratch each time.
This was a theme that Dr. Christine Tsien Silvers, Healthcare Executive Advisor to Amazon Web Services, discussed as well. A practicing emergency physician before dedicating her career to health technology leadership, Silvers used patient scenarios to illustrate how generative AI tools can reduce the burden of administrative tasks. Her examples included auto-generation of referrals, intelligent document processing and automated coding for reimbursement and prior authorization of paperwork. She also described a partnership with Dana Farber Medical Institute that uses generative AI to help clinicians more quickly and accurately interpret arterial blood gas results.
Silvers made the point that clinicians should have some training in AI, which Dr. Angel Mena, Chief Medical Officer of symplr, agrees with. In addition to his role at symplr, Mena also serves as the Internal Medicine Program Director at TriHealth, where he trains and supervises resident physicians. He has seen firsthand the impact of physician burnout and he believes that technology streamlining administrative workloads can ameliorate this pressing issue. He urges clinicians to step up, raise their hands and be part of the process so that they can partner with technologists on developing solutions that help them and their patients.
In the case of Sanford Health, the largest rural health system in the United States, many technological advances have long been in use by their clinicians. Dr. Dave Newman, Sanford’s Chief Medical Officer of Virtual Care, explained that Sanford Health was an early adopter of telehealth. Many of the patients they serve live in remote areas where they cannot easily see their doctors in person. Virtual care has been essential to combat zip code-related healthcare disparities. He discussed how Sanford’s new Virtual Care Center is helping to train clinicians in remote patient monitoring and other care delivery models that are bridging access gaps for rural populations.
As much excitement as there is about AI and other technological advances, there is also a crucial need for safeguards. I was delighted to interview Dr. John Halamka, who was the focus a Washington Post column I wrote in 2023. At the time, he told me that the Mayo Clinic had created more than 160 AI algorithms across cardiology, neurology, radiology and other specialties. Many more have since been developed. Halamka spoke about the need for all AI models to have transparency and accountability: in essence, they should have a label that describes how the model was created, not unlike nutrition labels for food. Data integrity is key to mitigating bias and ensuring credibility and trust.
While AI in healthcare was clearly the dominant theme throughout my interviews and many of ViVE’s sessions, I also appreciated discussions on other key components of our healthcare system. Dr. Chris DeRienzo, Chief Physician Executive of the American Hospital Association, explained what he learned after visiting member hospitals and health systems across the country. Workforce challenges are a consistent theme, with rural and urban hospitals alike struggling with clinician recruitment and retention. Thankfully, there are many bright spots. DeRienzo pointed to research that hospitalized patients are safer today that they were in 2019 and gave numerous examples of health system innovations that improve patient care.
Another crucial component of the healthcare system are community health centers (CHCs). Dr. Kyu Rhee, President and CEO of the National Association of Community Health Centers, explained how CHCs provide incredible value to patients, with accessible, affordable, high-quality primary care. According to Rhee, just 1 to 2% of total healthcare spending goes to CHCs, yet they serve 10% of the population. In rural areas, 1 in 5 residents rely on CHCs. He explained his vision for making CHCs the provider of choice, employer of choice and partner of choice.
A discussion of safety nets for vulnerable patients must include Medicaid. I was glad to speak on the topic with Dr. Alice Chen, Executive Vice President and Chief Health Officer at Centene. Centene is the largest Medicaid managed care organization in the country and serves 13 million patients. Chen described the importance of continuous Medicaid enrollment for young children and why stable coverage is so crucial to keep patients out of the hospital. There is also a strong economic case to be made, as effective prevention and primary care reduce healthcare costs.
Medicaid is the largest payer of maternity care in the United States, covering more than 40 percent of births. Dr. Neel Shah, Chief Medical Officer at the Maven Clinic, discussed the terrible statistic that the U.S. has the highest rate of maternal deaths of any high-income nation, and what can and should be done to improve care for women from preconception to menopause and beyond. He and Dr. David Nash, the Founding Dean Emeritus of the College of Population Health at Thomas Jefferson University, spoke extensively about the health policy challenges facing the country and what their advice is for navigating the many changes in today’s health policy landscape.
No discussion about the future of healthcare would be complete without mentioning the vital role of pharmacists. One of my favorite interviews at ViVE was with Rina Shah, Senior Vice President of Pharmacy Growth at Walgreens. Rina started working at Walgreens more than 25 years ago, first as a community pharmacist in its stores and then in a variety of leadership roles. She described the company’s response to Covid-19 and how it met the moment to rapidly scale services like vaccinations, testing and treatment. Pharmacists continue to be some of the most trusted healthcare professionals, who are also among the most accessible and most frequently visited providers. In these challenging times, it is essential for clinicians to not only utilize
technology-enabled tools but also to come back to basics in fostering trust to best support their patients’ healthcare journeys.
Videos of these conversations will be on HLTH Community in the next several weeks. They will also be available through HLTH’s podcast feed. I hope you will check them out. Tell us what you think—and see you at HLTH in October and ViVE next year!
