What if the key to curing today’s most complex diseases has been hiding in plain sight inside electronic health records all along?

In this episode of Straight Out of Health IT, Vish Srivastava, CEO of Century Health, explores how artificial intelligence can unlock the vast potential of real-world healthcare data that has long been trapped inside electronic health records. He explains why traditional clinical trials, although essential, often fail to accurately reflect how treatments perform across diverse, real-world patient populations, and how this gap hinders innovation. Drawing from both his professional journey and the personal experience of losing his grandfather to Alzheimer’s, Vish shares what motivates his mission to better understand disease progression and accelerate breakthrough treatments.

Vish breaks down what real-world data actually is, why more than 80% of it remains unstructured, and how fragmented EHR systems have made research slow, expensive, and inaccessible. He describes how observational studies and patient registries can take years and cost millions due to manual chart abstraction, and how carefully validated AI can now automate this process, turning clinical notes, PDFs, and imaging data into high-quality research-ready insights. The conversation also highlights how this approach can broaden research beyond historically narrow clinical trial populations.

Ultimately, the episode addresses the crucial issues of trust, bias, and patient privacy. Vish discusses how AI can either perpetuate or correct historical biases in healthcare data, why transparency and published validation are essential, and how strict de-identification and governance frameworks protect patient privacy. Together, these advances point toward a future where real-world data fuels faster, more inclusive, and more impactful medical research.

Tune in to hear how AI is reshaping clinical research and bringing us closer to treatments that truly work for real patients in the real world!

Resources

• Connect with Vish Srivastava on LinkedIn here.

• Follow Century Health on LinkedIn here and visit their website here.