F022 Thoughts on AI, interoperability, and better society from the Exponential Medicine 2018
Exponential Medicine is an annual conference on rapidly developing science of medicine and digital health. It is the safest bet when you want to get on track with the latest technological and scientific advances in healthcare in medicine in only a few days.
Conference Chair Daniel Kraft, MD.
To be more specific: the four days long event covers digitization of medicine, IT and data related technologies, advances in personalized medicine, latest from regenerative medicine, future of interventions with robotics, smart pills, nanomedicine, novelties in neuromedicine, and of course medtech/biotech and entrepreneurship.
If you’re on the side of absorbing the content from the comfort of your home, you can do so, as the event is live streamed, and all the recordings are available on the Singularity University Youtube Channel. You just need to use the conference program to navigate a bit which lecture to find where.
Episode 22 of Faces of digital health offers a recap on a few lucid thoughts on interoperability, AI, and how we need to start thinking if we wish to live in a better society in the future.
Listen to the podcast in iTunes, Podbean, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcast.
Speakers in episode 22:
Shannon Sartin, Executive Director of the US Department of Digital Service at Health and Human Services,
Lonnie Rae, the founder of a healthcare startup MEDAL, which is working on gathering patient data from various sources such as faxes, paper, and EHR system,
Rajeev Ronanki, SVP & Chief Digital Officer, Anthem,
Vinod Khosla, Founder of Khosla Ventures,
Dr. David Bray, Executive Director for the People Centered Internet coalition.
What is the big deal with interoperability
Interoperability has been a hot topic for a decade by now. Among other things because when you get into details you might realize, it’s a potentially unsolvable problem, said Shannon Sartin.
Perhaps this is easier to understand when you listen to data presented by the CEO of MEDAL Lonnie Rae:
When it matters most, we end up resorting to fax and paper. 25% of everything we’re spending in healthcare is administrative overhead.
The US spends 48 billion dollars on systems that were supposed to exchange data. 71% of providers believe this will not happen by 2020.
We’ve been left with fragmented medical records. There are more than 130 medical records solutions on the market, each one with their own solution for data exchange, and a variety of formats that can’t even be exchanged in their own category.
In healthcare, if you’ve seen one implementation [EHR], you’ve seen one implementation. Everyone one is different (See the full talk by Lonie Rae herestarting at 1:40:00).
Taking this into account the skepticism about newest technologies and their slow adoption is more apparent.
Shannon Sartin, Executive Director of the US Department of Digital Service at Health and Human Services.
Shannon Sartin: “We talk about AI and machine learning, but we need to walk before we can run. Some payors can’t even build simple APIs. I can’t imagine how you would apply blockchain and other fancy technologies on top in these institutions.”
Sartin believes data liquidity will be possible once the patients and the providers will demand better solutions, and the demand from the vendors to release the data will come from the market.
Rajeev Ronanki.
Not to be too pessimistic; Rajeev Ronanki SVP & Chief Digital Officer, Anthem first presented the positive changes AI is bringing to enterprises — from process automation, insight generation, to personalized engagement, and further on showed examples of AI implementations Anthem is looking at and implementing to improve the patient journey in the healthcare ecosystem (See his full talk here, starting at 4:00:00).
Another important hope is, that AI will change the work experience for healthcare professionals, which is crucial if we wish to lower burnout and raise the appeal of medical professions in the rising global needs for medical care one the one hand, and the growing shortage of medical professionals on the other.
The Cleveland Clinic.
William Morris MD Associate Chief Information Officer, Cleveland Clinic presented how the Cleveland Clinic redesigned care, and established control centres inside the hospitals to decrease the noise at the wards, and increase effectivity and focus in patient care (See his talk here starting at 4:31:31).
Moreover, Vinod Khosla shared his arguments why data science will bring more good to medicine than any other advancement. The fact is, Khosla emphasized, that at the moment, the quality of care is too random and too dependent on the luck we have with the doctor we get. Also, he believes primary care doctors will become the most important profession in healthcare (Click here for his full talk from Day 3:Session 18: Future of Work & Investing (4:04:00 onwards))
The conference ended with a session on Democratizing Technology for Global Health. Besides presentations of interesting projects in developing countries, the panel discussion touched upon questions such as how affordable are new inventions? Are they bringing better health or more than that widen the gap between the rich and the poor? Will only the wealthy leverage from new scientific advances?
Unfortunately, in some cases that will definitely be the case.
David Bray (right)
David Bray, the Executive Director, People-Centered Internet offered lucid thoughts regarding the needed mindset for the better future. While technology can be a source for good, it can also be a source of harm. We need to carefully consider how well are we prepared on potential negative consequences. As he said, in the era of technology, individualisation is not only normalized but even encouraged, causing generations to “learn helplessness, where it’s normal to be angry and believe anger will solve something.” It is the responsibility of each individual, to play an active role in positive changes.
As for the leaders, keep this in mind: “We need to distinguish between management and leadership. To some extent, we have to meet expectations, but if we only meet expectations, we will fall behind, and sometimes expectations are wrong.” (See the full panel on Day 4 in the Session 27 here. (Dr. Bray at (4:51:40)).