The Big Unlock

In this episode, Dr. Felicia Newhouse, Founder of AI-Powered Women, highlights the need for human centered leadership as the foundation for AI’s future in healthcare. Reflecting on her near-death experience and two decades in tech, she warns that rapid automation may boost efficiency but often leaves people feeling overwhelmed, disconnected, and burned out.

Dr. Newhouse emphasizes that true progress requires qualities only humans can bring, empathy, intuition, emotional intelligence, and what she describes as “systems awareness” and “systems feeling.” These capabilities help leaders understand the broader human impact of digital tools and design AI that supports well-being rather than replacing human judgment.

She urges organizations to slow down, prioritize dignity and belonging, and adopt AI in ways that strengthen human connection. According to Dr. Newhouse, the real unlock for healthcare will come when AI is guided by compassion, humanity, and mindful leadership. Take a listen.



In this episode, Dr. Chris Gallagher, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Access TeleCare, shares valuable insights on the evolution of AI, how virtual care is reshaping access, staffing, and costs across health systems, and why making technology effortless is the key to driving a successful virtual-first care strategy.

Chris recounts the pioneering achievement of building the first virtual ICU in Texas in 2013, which quickly proved life-saving and marked a turning point in virtual health adoption. He discusses how they are addressing physician distribution issues by augmenting in-person staff, shifting its focus from predominantly rural to 70% urban facilities by offering essential 24/7 virtual specialists to care teams. Chris stresses that solutions must be effortless for clinicians, “Fisher Price easy,” so adoption becomes self-perpetuating.

Chris highlights AI’s immense potential to improve efficiency, enhance physician experience, and expedite patient care, especially through automation and a future “virtual-first” healthcare strategy. Take a listen.

In this episode, Charles E. Christian, VP of Technology and CTO at Franciscan Health, shares reflections from his five-decade journey in healthcare IT and how Franciscan is blending mission, compassion, and innovation to transform patient care.

Chuck explains how the health system is approaching AI adoption through strong governance and a clear focus on solving real problems, from reducing clinician burden to enhancing care delivery. He highlights several key initiatives, including voice agent pilots that help physicians reclaim after-hours time, a Tech Innovation Lab that allows teams to safely experiment and “fail fast,” and a virtual nurse mentoring program that connects senior nurses with new graduates for real-time guidance.

Chuck states that technology should serve, not distract, and the true goal of digital transformation is to enable better care for people. Take a listen.



In this episode, Anil Saldanha, Chief Innovation Officer at Rush University System for Health shares how Rush is addressing deep-rooted health inequities in Chicago by targeting the life expectancy gap through bold, system-wide interventions.

Anil highlights Rush’s commitment to public health, chronic disease management, and early cancer detection by referring to innovative initiatives like Rush Connect Plus, which is an on-demand, subscription-based virtual care model, and the rollout of Grail’s multi-cancer early detection test. He explains their use of cutting-edge AI technologies, from ambient listening and AI-powered symptom checkers to novel behavioral health kiosks leveraging multi-agent generative AI for PTSD care.

Anil points to the impact of consumer-driven digital tools, health equity analytics, and a data warehouse that will enable targeted interventions for chronic care. He closes with optimism about AI’s future in healthcare, the shift toward “connected care anywhere,” and the growing role of empowered, informed patients. Take a listen.

In this episode, Dr. Paul Yi, Associate Member, Department of Radiology, Section Chief of Intelligent Imaging Informatics (I3) at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, shares his journey from radiology training at Johns Hopkins to leading AI initiatives at St. Jude, focusing on pediatric cancer and other catastrophic diseases. 

Dr. Yi highlights how AI is transforming the radiology workflow, from automating imaging protocols and improving image reconstruction to translating complex medical reports into patient-friendly language. He emphasizes the importance of data strategy, discussing the integration of clinical EMRs, PACS, and research databases, ensuring interoperability while leveraging domain expertise across disciplines. He explores generative AI applications, including virtual imaging trials that simulate patient populations for safer, faster, and cost-effective clinical research, as well as patient-facing applications like AI chatbots for healthcare education, noting both potential and limitations in trust and accuracy.

Dr. Yi reflects on bridging research and commercialization, underscoring the need to align academic and industry incentives. He envisions a future powered by multimodal AI models that combine imaging, vitals, labs, and clinical text to deliver comprehensive, personalized insights – accelerating precision care and innovation in pediatric oncology. Take a listen.

In this episode, Dr. Andreas Michaelides, Clinical Psychologist helping shape Clinical AI with Google and Former Chief of Psychology at Noom, discusses the evolving intersection of technology and psychology, emphasizing how digital platforms and behavioral science can drive meaningful health outcomes at scale.

Drawing from his extensive experience at Noom and current role at Google, he highlights the value of integrating personalized care, education, and accountability through innovative technologies such as AI and wearables. Dr. Michaelides explores the ethical complexities and societal impact of AI-driven health solutions, underscoring the necessity for thoughtful governance and responsible implementation. He notes the transformative potential of predictive analytics and adaptive digital tools in enabling better assessments, interventions, and relationships between humans and technology.

Dr. Michaelides encourages practitioners to embrace uncertainty, unlearn traditional paradigms, and innovate by merging expertise with curiosity. While acknowledging fears around the rapid pace of tech advancement, he conveys an optimistic outlook on the future of digital health and behavioral change. Take a listen.

In this episode, Jan Beger, Global Head of AI Advocacy at GE Healthcare, shares his mission to bridge the gap between the conceptual promise and real-world impact of AI in healthcare. He stresses on the critical need to build AI literacy and trust among clinicians, executives, and students, and explains why a human-centric approach and strong change management are critical for successful adoption.

Jan highlights GE’s global AI literacy programs that train employees and clinicians on responsible use, practical applications, and critical evaluation of AI. He highlights how moving beyond pilots to strategic, systemwide deployment requires continuous education, executive engagement, and a focus on change management. He also spoke about GE’s successes such as improved efficiency in software development and innovations like AI-guided handheld ultrasound devices that democratize imaging by supporting users of varied expertise, as well as the challenges of keeping AI tools robust and up-to-date.

Jan addresses the future of the workforce, noting that adaptability and tech fluency will be essential as 70% of job skills evolve by 2030. He encourages healthcare leaders to see AI not just as technology, but as a transformative tool to enhance care and outcomes. Take a listen.

In this episode, Thomas Fuchs, Chief AI Officer at Eli Lilly, shares his journey from early machine learning research to spearheading transformative AI initiatives across the pharmaceutical value chain. Lilly is running over a thousand AI projects—from drug discovery and development to manufacturing and commercial operations—leveraging innovations like language models for chatbots, computer vision for quality control, and biomarker development.

Thomas emphasizes trust, transparency, and collaboration as critical to AI adoption, supported by AI certification programs for all Lilly technology employees, as well as AI education resources being made available for everyone at Lilly. He also highlights the company’s unique “lab-in-the-loop” setups that generate synthetic data to accelerate innovation.

Thomas shares real-world successes, including AI-assisted drug discovery and intelligent chatbots, and how AI is building confidence across the organization. With robust data infrastructure and scalable strategies for synthesizing large datasets, Lilly is driving rapid innovation. Thomas predicts faster drug design, broader access to medicines, and continuous education as defining trends for AI in healthcare. Take a listen.

In this episode, Dr. Girish N. Nadkarni, Chief AI Officer at Mount Sinai Health System, discusses his background as a physician-technologist and his vision for AI in healthcare as a tool that augments rather than replaces clinicians.

Dr. Nadkarni shares insights on how AI is reshaping healthcare. He describes AI as an ‘arbitrage of knowledge for time,’ enabling physicians to spend less time on administrative work and more time with patients. He also shares real-world examples including ambient AI scribes that eliminate manual note-taking and predictive models that detect patient deterioration hours before it occurs, especially in critical care units such as the NICU. Dr. Nadkarni distinguishes predictive AI’s deterministic approach from generative AI’s flexible, non-linear potential, emphasizing the need for governance, ethics, and trust in deploying both. He outlines Mount Sinai’s cross-functional framework—spanning care, operations, workforce, and research—supported by an assurance lab to monitor bias and safety.

Dr. Girish highlights current AI applications that save physicians time and enable proactive care, while predicting future developments will include multimodal integration of text, voice, images, and video to better reflect clinical decision-making processes. Take a listen.

In this episode, Dr. Michael Docktor, Co-founder and CEO at Dock Health, shares his journey from being a pediatric gastroenterologist at Boston Children’s Hospital to building a healthcare technology company. Inspired by his sister’s medical experiences and his family’s design background, Dr. Doctor combined medicine, design, and technology to address inefficiencies in operational workflows, particularly the administrative burdens that weigh heavily on providers and staff.

Dr. Docktor explains how Dock Health was created to serve as a productivity platform for healthcare, filling the gap between electronic health records (EHRs) and the countless administrative tasks not supported by them. By digitizing and streamlining processes like referrals, patient intake, and care coordination—often still managed through faxes, emails, and spreadsheets—Dock Health aims to reduce redundancy, improve visibility, and enhance the overall user experience for healthcare organizations of all sizes.

The conversation also focuses on the role of AI and automation in transforming healthcare operations. Dr. Docktor highlights Dock Health’s “AI‑first” approach, incorporating generative AI and agentic models to automate routine tasks while keeping humans in the loop for oversight. He envisions a near future where administrative inefficiencies are largely eliminated, giving clinicians more time with patients. Dr. Docktor also describes AI as the “big unlock” that could massively reduce the trillions wasted annually in healthcare administration, making care more efficient, accessible, and patient‑centered. Take a listen.