This month’s episode of “News You Can Use” on HealthcareNOWRadio features news from the month of July 2024
News You Can Use with your Hosts Dr Craig Joseph and Dr Nick van Terheyden
The show that gives you a quick insight into the latest news, twists, turns and debacles going on in healthcare withmy friend and co-host Craig Joseph, MD (@CraigJoseph) Chief Medical Officer at Nordic Consulting Partners and myself, where every diagnosis comes with a side of humor. We hope you stay curious, stay engaged, and keep seeking the truth in healthcare in a world that thrives on information.
Buckle up as we dive into the ER of excitement, the ICU of irrationality, and the waiting room of wacky wisdom in this months show that features a review of:
- What can AI not Do
- Everything is going to be better with AI
- AMDIS
- Management by walking around
This week we discuss the importance of making default options in systems to streamline processes, insights from the AMDIS conference, and the role of AI in healthcare. Craig Joseph shares his insights on how simple changes, such as setting beneficial default options, can significantly improve participation in programs like 401ks and how this can apply in healthcare, where setting defaults for standard treatments can help guide physicians toward optimal choices without unnecessary deliberation.
We both attended the AMDIS conference, a gathering for medical informatics professionals, and spend time diving into soem of the sessions and insights. The conference has evolved from a small support group into a major event where participants share both their successes and failures. This year, artificial intelligence (AI) was a central theme, reflecting its growing importance in healthcare. While the emphasis on AI was seen as a positive step, there was also a call for a balanced focus, acknowledging that there are other critical areas in healthcare that need attention.
Lastly, we discuss the potential and limitations of AI in the medical field. While AI can assist in generating creative ideas and managing vast data sets, there are still areas it cannot master, such as understanding the intricacies of human interactions and creativity. The conversation underscored that while AI is a powerful tool, human oversight and creativity remain indispensable in healthcare. This perspective encourages a thoughtful integration of AI into medical practices, ensuring that it complements rather than replaces the human element.
We hope you enjoy our take on the latest news and developments in healthcare and want to help you keep untangling the web of information, dodging the sensational pitfalls, and emerging victorious, albeit a little dizzy, on the other side. In the end, the stories we uncover, and the discussions we ignite, all shape the narrative of our shared future. We want to hear from you especially if you have topics covered or questions you’d like answered. You can reach out directly via the contact form on my website, or send a message on LinkedIn to Craig or me.
Until next week keep solving healthcare’s mysteries before they become your emergencies
Listen live at 4:00 AM, 12:00 Noon or 8:00 PM ET, Monday through Friday for the next week at HealthcareNOW Radio. After that, you can listen on demand (See podcast information below.) Join the conversation on Twitter at #TheIncrementalist.
Listen along on HealthcareNowRadio or on SoundCloud
Raw Transcript
Nick van Terheyden, MD: Welcome to the Month of July. I am Dr. Nick.
Craig Joseph: And I’m Dr. Craig.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: This week we’ll be dissecting the latest healthcare news, unraveling the twists and turns, and making sense of all of those debacle.
Craig Joseph: Just remember, life’s a lot like a breaking news story, unpredictable, often absurd, and occasionally leaves you wondering if it’s all just a cosmic prank.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: This week we take a look at management by walking around.
Craig Joseph: And we ask, will everything, just.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: Everything be better with ai? But first off, this week we’re gonna talk about Amdiss or the American Medical Director’s Information Society that both Craig and I attended last week. It was last, yes, it was last week. It was. Sometimes it’s that, well, I’m just gonna, in my defense, I had to take a red eye. Well, I didn’t have to, but I took a red eye home, and I realized how little sleep I got first because my online monitoring tool told me that I got very little sleep. But then the following night, I slept for a solid 14 hours. So I think I got both nights the following day. So. I’m still a little bit, discombobulated. But, anyway, AMDISS, been around for a while. They, they certainly have a destination event. Right? I think it’s one of your favorite spots, isn’t it, Craig?
Craig Joseph: It is. They, they always meet, in, in June and in Ojai, California, Oja Ai, Ojai, California, which is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t involve an ocean, involves a valley, not far from the ocean, but, yeah, there’s no water opportunities here. But yeah, it’s, It’s beautiful.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: It also has a little bit of history associated with it that you discovered on this particular visit, and you’ve been probably more times than I have, I suspect. What, what, what significant Hollywood character is associated, or characters is associated with Ojai, California?
Craig Joseph: Yeah. Well, I, I actually learned this, maybe a year or two ago. My hygienist at my dentist, was, I mentioned to her that I was going to Ojai and she said, Ojai the bio, the home of the bionic woman, and I looked at her like, I’m not sure I trust you now, to jab very sharp metal pieces of, you know, instruments into my mouth. But in fact, she was right. Both, the character for the 6 dollars million Man and the, the Bionic woman were both from. Ojai, California and in, several episodes, and I know all of this because of the internet. I can’t say that I’ve seen the episodes, but I’d love to see ’em if I could. There were several episodes where, the bionic woman, lost her memory, and they took her back to Ojai to see if being around, you know, places where she grew up would, would help her. I’m not sure if, if it did or not. I don’t wanna ruin it for anyone. I don’t know. But even if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: But yeah, no Spoilers here, folks. No Spoilers. No spoilers here. Spoilers for.
Craig Joseph: For, for, TV series from the 1970s. We will not ruin it for you.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: So, I, I, I certainly don’t remember those episodes, but I do remember that series. I remember both those series, and I remember enjoying them, but I have seen them subsequently, and boy, do they take pretty poorly. I’m just gonna say.
Craig Joseph: I have to say that I love seventies TV shows for the very reason that they, they remind you of a different time. Sometimes good, sometimes cringey, but boy, oh boy, it’s, yeah, stuff like that often would not get made. Now, and of course.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: 6, 6 dollars million.
Craig Joseph: I mean, it’s not even that much money to, to to, to rebuild an astronaut that would be a lot more expensive Now. Correct?
Nick van Terheyden, MD: Yes. So, well, a as we, step into amdiss and you know, move on from our seventies tv, you know, perhaps we’re jumping the shark, he says, with this clever, association that I only looked about. That was good. That was Fonzie, right? That was good.
Craig Joseph: Yeah. That was Arthur Zare. Yes.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: So, I, I, let me start, if I may, on Amdiss. So, always love the conference. I think it’s a collection of, medical informatics types of various titles, various roles. Certainly when it started, and it started a long time ago, it was a pretty lonely space. There weren’t a lot of folks they got together. I think this was as much support for each other as well as mutual learning. It has a very active listserv, which, you know, I continue to track. It’s, shows up with queries, and in fact, there’s now a searchable area that, allows you to go and look at that knowledge. That’s, included in the, exchanges. The conference itself once a year comes with a few extra, things. I did the AI sort of, intro, I wanna say bootcamp. I’m not sure I did that at the, outset, which I enjoyed, and in fact, it felt like that was almost the, the, I’m maybe not the only thing, but it really was the focus. I think AI was really the center of attention, for the whole of the conference, and you know, that was good and bad. I think there are other things that, we need to be thinking about, but we’re not, what were your thoughts?
Craig Joseph: Yeah, it, you know, I was looking over the, the, the list of sessions and AI was probably there for, for half of them. So I guess that’s a thing. Although we’ve seen things before that didn’t pan out, but I think, this one is, is going to pan out. I agree with you. Yeah, when this conference started, there was no such thing as a Chief Medical Information Officer or Chief Health Information Officer, and it was really just, physicians who were interested in technology and and that was back in the day when technology was, was, was always involved in healthcare, but, more so like in the operating room or you know, in the radiology, suite, not so much in the doctor’s office every single day, day in and day out, and that’s where we’re at today. Of course, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who uses paper to, to write down what’s going on with you, and so, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s really important and it’s, it’s great once a year. It’s not the only opportunity, but it’s a good opportunity to see people, see what they’re doing, hear about their successes. What I really enjoy about this conference is actually hearing about people’s, failures as well. Mm hmm, and that’s been, you don’t generally go to other conferences and hear people talk about stuff that they did that didn’t work out, and that’s really important and and and quite helpful, and so usually there’s one or two sessions of, of, of, of things that didn’t work out either professionally, so like, Hey, I got fired.
This is, this is what happened, and you, you’d say, well, no one’s gonna go to a conference and talk about how they got fired. Oh, absolutely. They, they’ve done that before and and did that again to some extent. But also, hey, we tried this thing with, this technology with these patients, and it, it didn’t work out as we expected, and and here’s how we made it better, or here’s where we decided this is not ready for prime time, and we’re just gonna back off and go back to the way it was, and so, yeah, it’s a, it was, it was a good time.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: Yeah. I, and there were some extra sessions hosted by, some of the, the vendors that were there. I, went to the, one of the vendors, obviously not obviously, but, you know, they included ai. This was, they’re really trying to, focus on, as they described it, the 73 percent which, you know, was an interesting statistic. That’s the amount of time that physicians spend with their noses in the, computers, or technology, rather than focusing on the patient, and one of the founders has written, I’m gonna call it the Bible. I, I might be, forgive me if I’m not, because I opened the first few pages of this fundamentals of deep learning, and I was lost immediately. This is really deep stuff.
But, a actually really fascinating to hear, and I, I heard, I, I think one of the most standout demos I heard was, a conversational AI that not only was processing the, the inbound, but actually spoke back, and I swear you would not know that it wasn’t technology. It was, it was as if it was a person, and I had to ask, because I’ve, I’ve heard a few of them, but they’re not very common. But this is how they, they’re doing it. They’re, it’s a conversational interaction to try and bring people out and do some of the administrative work. That for me was super impressive. I was, pretty much blown away. Now, narrow use case. I think if I came away with one thing from all of this, it was still no generalized ai. I think that’s the, the major area. But in terms of applicability, I think we’ll see and are seeing functions, but in sort of narrow areas that don’t necessarily move into other areas, is do you think that’s fair or not?
Craig Joseph: I, you know, I, I think we’re seeing improve, we’re seeing changes everywhere. But to, to your point, you know, it’s one of those things where I, I think with the basic, and let’s be honest, the things that we’re seeing today are basic. The things in that, in that, in that bible, that book you were talking about, even though they’re, they’re inscrutable to you, to you and I are probably pretty basic, for what’s, what’s going on. You know, we can really quickly get to 80 to 90 percent of whatever that thing is that we want it to do. It’s always the last 10 or 20 percent that become more complicated, and I think today what we’re seeing in healthcare often is, you know, we’ve, we’ve made this, this huge jump, and the information that’s presented to patients or to, to physicians is right, is pretty right most of the time.
It’s pretty good most of the time, and if you are an expert, that’s actually amazing, because I, I know what I’m gonna say. When a patient sends me a, a, a message from the portal saying, I had this test and this thing, and this doctor said that, I, I always know what I’m, what I’m gonna say, and if the, if the, AI can propose to me what I was going to say before I say it, before I have to say it, and I look at it and like, yeah, it’s great. Perfect. Send, maybe change one little word here or there. Hmm. But when it’s wrong, like, oh God, no, that’s not the exact opposite. Well, since I’m an expert in this particular field, I can say, oh my God, it’s completely wrong, and just delete it, and the, the problem right of, of course, is that patients, most patients don’t know.
They don’t have that expertise in the field. They’re not supposed to, and and so when they, if they were to get something, they’re gonna, it always sounds, anything that an AI generates sounds very impressive and correct, and so that’s the concern. So yeah, I think what we’re, what we’re seeing is people trying to, focus down like a laser, the ai so that it, it, you know, it won’t hallucinate or you know, make thing, make it, be much more, likely that it’s gonna be correct, and even if it’s not quite as good, if it’s not wrong, that’s a big, big play, and so that’s probably where the work’s gonna happen in the next two or 3 years where we can be confident that it’s not going to totally, totally mess up the situation. Maybe I’m, maybe, I’m trying to get it to be a resident physician. I don’t know. Is that, is that acceptable to be a resident? They still make mistakes. They’re young.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: I I think even at the higher levels, they’re making mistakes, right? I mean, it’s just removing as much of that error as po I mean, is it, is it better? It, it, this discussion reminds me a lot of the self driving cars, great. You know, the self driving car is, better than a human for the most part. But then as soon as you start to get to the edge cases, it’s not, because if it’s got to make decisions, you know, what are the ethics of those decisions? Not that people are any better, and it’s highly dependent on the other cars, and if all the other cars are being driven by people, then there’s too many random elements that they can’t predict.
So you, you need to have it completely rolled out. So I, it’s, it, it feels very, deep is, is the only word I can think of right here. But, so, you, you presented your, your specific area of expertise and in fact your, your book designing, for health, and specifically about design decisions. I, I, you know, any key, key insights that you think people should really understand about this?
Craig Joseph: Well, first of all, I want to thank you. You were openly weeping, at the conference.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: After my Talk. I was, but it wasn’t about your talk, it was about the clothes you were wearing.
Craig Joseph: Oh, I misinterpreted that. I’m sorry. I thought you were, I thought you were really moved by my talk about design and healthcare. Oh, yes. Yeah. Totally. Now I’m a, I’m a big propo. When we talk about design, I’m not talking about, color coordinating your, your outfit. I’m Talking, yeah. See, oh, now I get it. See, that’s why you should pay attention during some of these talks and stay off your social.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: Media, media. I was looking at the color of your shirt going, what the hell is this name?
Craig Joseph: It was, it was a lovely shirt, designing because, designing with, with, keeping in mind how humans, how humans think, it’s called human centered design certainly has been around for decades and decades, and my main message, at the conference and and after the conference and before the conference is, Hey, sometimes we design things in healthcare, or we let them happen without intentional design, and we make it difficult for people to do the right thing. We make it difficult for them to give us the information that we want. We make it difficult for people to pay the bill. You know, most of us want to pay a bill when we get one from our doctor or hospital, assuming that we’re happy with the care that we got.
But it’s so difficult. You get different bills from different people, and sometimes the first bill is not exactly right, and you, you pay them money, and then you find out they owe you money back, and all of that’s very complicated, and and can’t we make it easier, and I think the answer is yes, we can. But we have to understand how, how people think, how they process information, and then design our workflows, design our technology and our tools to, make the outcome that we all want, to be the, the easy thing, you know? The most obvious.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: It’s Indeed. I, I mean, the thing that I took away from this was, especially I, and I know there were multiples, but it was the default make, the default the Easy choice.
Craig Joseph: I was just gonna talk about that. Yeah. Yeah. So the, I I, when I, when I talk to physicians, I love to bring outside non-healthcare examples, so that you can see that, you know, the rest of the world has moved on and we need to catch up, and this one study i, I reference, it’s a study, but it has to do with finances, is a, is there was a, an employer who wanted to improve their 401k, their employers, their employees 401k participation, and and they did one thing, and as you kind of alluded to that, one thing made a big difference, and the one thing was before, when you joined the company as a new employee, you had to opt in to having some money automatically withdrawn from your paycheck to go into a 401k tax free, which would be often met by, you know, by the, the company you’re working for.
So it’s huge. It’s kind of a no brainer. If you can afford to do it, you absolutely should do it, and about 49 percent of their employees did that, and then they changed it to an opt out system, meaning they told new employees, Hey, we are gonna automatically sign you up to take one percent or two percent of your, of your salary and your, pay and put it into a 401k for you, and if you don’t want us to do that, that’s okay. We
Craig Joseph: okay. We don’t, you don’t have to have us do that. But if you don’t want to, then you gotta sign here, and their numbers went up to 86 percent right? So from 49 to 86, simply by changing the default, and it works similarly in healthcare, whether you’re a patient or a physician, if I, if I know what the right thing is for a physician to do, meaning I, I have an, I have a set set of orders for patients who are being admitted for a common thing, like community acquired pneumonia, and so, you know, if you’ve got pneumonia and you’ve been on oral antibiotics at home and they’re not working, you need to come in for some stronger stuff. Hey, give physicians the, a list of the orders that typically, should be used, and then as you mentioned, default in the ones that are really key. So for instance, hey, this is the best antibiotic. It works great. It doesn’t cost very much money, it doesn’t have a lot of side effects. This is the one doctor that you should use most of the time, not always, but most of the time, why would you not? Maybe they’re allergic. Maybe the patient was on this form of antibiotic before they came in.
Craig Joseph: It’s, it’s often pretty boring, and and iodine and.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: So no change from the ordinary, blog post.
Craig Joseph: No, it fits right in for my, yeah, right, For my style. That’s perfect for You. For me, it’s perfect. But for people who have skills, it’s not so good, but it is good at, you can say, you know, it’s from a creative standpoint, it’s good at helping you become more creative. Hey, I am interested in examples of this or that, and give me some examples, and and again, it might give you some things that are, are you’ve already thought of and you’re like, well, that’s not helpful. It might give you some things that sound amazing that you hadn’t thought of, and many of those might be true, but some of those won’t. So anything it gives you, you gotta double check, but it can kind of push you in the right direction. I, as you, as you alluded to, I, I co wrote a book, and I was giving it to a, a chief information officer at a, at a big health system, and she said to me, what you think I’m just gonna take this book without, you know, a very nice signature and message from you, and I said, oh, what do you, what do you want? She goes, I, I demand a poem.
Craig Joseph: It was dumb, and it rhymed quite nicely, and it was perfect because it was, it was a gag, but that kind of thing. I think AI is very helpful with the, I think to get more seriously, to answer your question though, about what is AI not good at? Let’s talk about the converse. What’s it really good at? It seems really good at looking through lots and lots and lots of data. Oh, it Is, Right? It is, and so I was mentioning to you, before we started, recording today, that just this morning, just this morning, I saw two articles. One said, wow, AI is really good when it comes to, looking at CT scans and diagnosing pulmonary emboli. Mm hmm, yeah. Which again, I think radiologists think they’re pretty good at it, too. Butis can do it and AI can do it faster, and so kind of present like, Hey, of all the CT scans, Dr. Radiologists, look at these two right now, even though there’s 20 before it. Look at these two right now. That’s, that’s super helpful, and another was using the pulse ox, which is that little kind of, little red thing that you put on your finger to check your oxygen, or in kids, we often put it on their, on their feet. The pulse ox is being used. Just that, and really, again, that number just tells us that a percent oxygenation can be used to diagnose, cyanotic heart disease in newborns often before the pediatrician does or can, and so that’s, that’s amazing. Again, how does it do that Data?
Craig Joseph: It might give you some things that sound amazing that you hadn’t thought of, and many of those might be true, but some of those won’t. So anything it gives you, you gotta double check, but it can kind of push you in the right direction. I, as you, as you alluded to, I, I co wrote a book, and I was giving it to a, a chief information officer at a, at a big health system, and she said to me, what you think I’m just gonna take this book without, you know, a very nice signature and message from you, and I said, oh, what do you, what do you want? She goes, I, I demand a poem. You need to write a poem for me, and and I think she was being sarcastic, but I, I said, that’s no problem, and then I, I asked Chad g pt, right in front of her at dinner, to write a short Poem to write the poem, and then you, I said, write a short poem about user centered design and and chief information officers in healthcare, and that was it, and it did, it was great. It was great. It was dumb, and it rhymed quite nicely, and it was perfect because it was, it was a gag, but that kind of thing. I think AI is very helpful with the, I think to get more seriously, to answer your question though, about what is AI not good at? Let’s talk about the converse. What’s it really good at? It seems really good at looking through lots and lots and lots of data. Oh, it Is, Right? It is, and so I was mentioning to you, before we started, recording today, that just this morning, just this morning, I saw two articles.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: No American. So let’s go on to a better example.
Craig Joseph: Cannot be creative, that. But it could, well, you’re right, you are a hun, you are right. Cannot be creative. However, it can spur. It can spur creativity. It can. So I was joking, of course, when I said there’s nothing it can’t do, but, there’s lots of things it can do pretty well, right? Yeah. So you can actually say, a write a blog post for me. It’s, it’s often pretty boring, and and iodine and.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: So no change from the ordinary, blog post.
Craig Joseph: No, it fits right in for my, yeah, right, For my style. That’s perfect for You. For me, it’s perfect. But for people who have skills, it’s not so good, but it is good at, you can say, you know, it’s from a creative standpoint, it’s good at helping you become more creative. Hey, I am interested in examples of this or that, and give me some examples, and and again, it might give you some things that are, are you’ve already thought of and you’re like, well, that’s not helpful. It might give you some things that sound amazing that you hadn’t thought of, and many of those might be true, but some of those won’t.
Craig Joseph: So for instance, hey, this is the best antibiotic. It works great. It doesn’t cost very much money, it doesn’t have a lot of side effects. This is the one doctor that you should use most of the time, not always, but most of the time, why would you not? Maybe they’re allergic. Maybe the patient was on this form of antibiotic before they came in. There are reasons not to use it, but most of the time, the 80 percent rule is they’re gonna use this one default, that choice in, and it’s, it’s kind of shocking as how many hospitals and healthcare systems don’t kind of make use of that.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: Simple, Low cost, Easy, low cost.
Craig Joseph: Easy, easy for everyone, easy for the doctor. I don’t have to think about it. I I’m still responsible, of Course, and and
Craig Joseph: no AI involved.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: None. Not, not a one. Speaking of which, what can
Nick van Terheyden, MD: AI not do?
Craig Joseph: That’s a, that’s a trick question. There’s nothing AI can’t do, Nick.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: We all Know that. Oh, I, I’m sorry. There are, there are some easy answers here. I don’t think AI can watch
Nick van Terheyden, MD: a game of cricket and understand it.
Craig Joseph: No, but no human can do that either. Nick That’s.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: No, no, American human. You mean there’s a sticky wicked, and.
Craig Joseph: No one can, it’s impossible to understand cricket. No American. So let’s go on to a better example.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: Cannot be creative, that.
Craig Joseph: But it could, well, you’re right, you are a hun, you are right. Cannot be creative. However, it
Craig Joseph: can spur. It can spur creativity. It can. So I
Craig Joseph: was joking, of course, when I said there’s nothing it can’t do, but, there’s lots of things it can do pretty
Craig Joseph: well, right? Yeah. So you can actually say, a write a blog post for
Craig Joseph: me. It’s, it’s often pretty boring, and and
Craig Joseph: odine and.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: So no change from the ordinary, blog post.
Craig Joseph: No, it fits right in for my, yeah, right, For my style. That’s perfect for You. For me, it’s perfect. But for people who have skills, it’s
Craig Joseph: not so good, but it is good at, you can say, you know, it’s from a creative standpoint, it’s
Craig Joseph: good at helping you become more creative. Hey, I am interested in
Craig Joseph: examples of this or that, and give me some examples, and and again, it
Craig Joseph: might give you some things that are, are you’ve already thought of and you’re like, well, that’s not helpful. It
Craig Joseph: might give you some things that sound amazing that you hadn’t thought of, and many of those might be true, but
Craig Joseph: some of those won’t. So anything it gives you, you gotta double check, but it can kind of push you in the right direction.
Craig Joseph: I, as you, as you alluded to, I, I co wrote a book, and I
Craig Joseph: was giving it to a, a chief information officer at a, at
Craig Joseph: a big health system, and she said to me, what you think I’m just gonna take this book without, you
Craig Joseph: know, a very nice signature and message from you, and I said, oh, what
Craig Joseph: do you, what do you want? She goes, I, I demand a poem. You need to write a poem for me, and and
Craig Joseph: I think she was being sarcastic, but I, I said, that’s no problem, and then I, I asked Chad g
Craig Joseph: pt, right in front of her at dinner, to write a short Poem to write the poem, and
Craig Joseph: then you, I said, write a short poem about user centered design and and chief information officers in healthcare, and
Craig Joseph: that was it, and it did, it was great.
Craig Joseph: It was great. It was dumb, and it rhymed quite nicely, and it
Craig Joseph: was perfect because it was, it was a gag, but that kind of thing. I think AI is very helpful with
Craig Joseph: the, I think to get more seriously, to answer your question though, about what
Craig Joseph: is AI not good at? Let’s talk about the converse. What’s it really good at? It seems
Craig Joseph: really good at looking through lots and lots and lots of data. Oh, it
Craig Joseph: Is, Right? It is, and so I was mentioning to you, before we started, recording
Craig Joseph: today, that just this morning, just this morning, I saw two articles. One
Craig Joseph: said, wow, AI is really good when it comes to, looking at
Craig Joseph: CT scans and diagnosing pulmonary emboli.
Craig Joseph: Mm hmm, yeah. Which again, I think radiologists think they’re pretty good at it, too. Butis
Craig Joseph: can do it and AI can do it faster, and so kind of present like, Hey,
Craig Joseph: of all the CT scans, Dr. Radiologists, look at these two right now, even though there’s 20 before it. Look at these
Craig Joseph: two right now. That’s, that’s super helpful, and another was using the pulse
Craig Joseph: ox, which is that little kind of, little red thing that you put on your finger to check your oxygen,
Craig Joseph: or in kids, we often put it on their, on their feet. The pulse ox
Craig Joseph: is being used. Just that, and really, again, that number just tells us that a percent oxygenation can
Craig Joseph: be used to diagnose, cyanotic heart disease in newborns often
Craig Joseph: before the pediatrician does or can, and so that’s,
Craig Joseph: that’s amazing.
Craig Joseph: Again, how does it do that Data? Lots and lots of data. Lots, lots of data that we don’t even see as humans. All
Craig Joseph: we see is a blinking number that’s usually like 93 or 95 or something like that. But
Craig Joseph: there’s tons of other data points that are behind the scenes used to get to that number. Give all of
Craig Joseph: that to an ai. It does amazing things.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: And, and that opens the door, which we won’t have time for today, to, talk about the things that you can hack
Nick van Terheyden, MD: or change in ai, by creating signs that
Nick van Terheyden, MD: only the AI can read with e essentially invisible components, and you
Nick van Terheyden, MD: can create all sorts of traffic jams. There’s been all sorts of, misbehavior around
Nick van Terheyden, MD: that. But, that’s for another moment, in, in the remaining, time that
Nick van Terheyden, MD: we have management by walking around.
Craig Joseph: Yeah, this was, Jack Welch said this, and I’ve been a big proponent and mentioned it in my talk, last
Craig Joseph: week. Hey, getting out there and actually seeing what’s happening, whether you’re working in
Craig Joseph: a hospital or in a factory floor, getting management out of the, see
Craig Joseph: suite, and it’s one thing to read reports about what’s happening, it’s another to actually walk around, ask doctors,
Craig Joseph: nurses in the hospital, ask patients how they’ve been treated. That’s how you get to
Craig Joseph: the, to the root of inequality issues, or performance improvement, really,
Craig Joseph: that’s the key. So get out and actually talk to people and ignore the
Craig Joseph: layers of bureaucracy between you and the person doing the work.
Nick van Terheyden, MD: A and you also have an appreciation of the job. I did, some years back presentation
Nick van Terheyden, MD: with, Hilton at, the Health Information Management Society HIMSS
Nick van Terheyden, MD: meeting, and one of the things that they require their senior execs
Nick van Terheyden, MD: to do is to spend 3 days, 3 days in hotels, you know,
Nick van Terheyden, MD: small, all part of the brands, and the individual that
Nick van Terheyden, MD: I was on the stage with described this and how much of an appreciation she had for, how
Nick van Terheyden, MD: difficult and backbreaking it is to, make that many beds, and that was just one
Nick van Terheyden, MD: element of, you know, the work. So I always say this, walk a day in the shoes. But
Nick van Terheyden, MD: we find ourselves at the end of another episode exploring healthcare’s mysteries before
Nick van Terheyden, MD: they become your emergencies. Until next time, I’m Dr. Nick.
Craig Joseph: And I’m Dr. Craig.
