Artificial intelligence is being positioned as the next major transformation in healthcare, but the industry has seen similar waves of technological change before. In Part 1 of a three-part series, host J. Carlisle Larsen speaks with Robert Wachter, M.D., Chair of the Department of Medicine at University of California-San Francisco and author of A Giant Leap: How AI Is Transforming Healthcare and What That Means for Our Future, about how to understand this moment in AI. Drawing on lessons from the rollout of electronic health records, Wachter explains why previous efforts to digitize healthcare often fell short of expectations and what may be different this time. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

AI in Healthcare: What’s Different and What Isn’t

The Gist Healthcare Podcast

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** The Gist Healthcare Podcast

## Participants

- **Jay Carlyle Larson** (Gist Healthcare Daily)
- **Robert Wachter** (University of California, San Francisco)

## Transcript

Artificial intelligence is being talked about as the technology that could finally fix healthcare. It can improve access, reduce administrative burden, and maybe even change how care is delivered. But if you've been in this industry for a while, you've heard versions of that promise before. So what, if anything, is actually different this time?

I'm Jay Carlyle Larson and this is The Gist Healthcare Podcast. It's Monday, April 13th. Thanks so much for joining us. On today's episode, we begin a three-part series on artificial intelligence in healthcare, looking at what's changed, what hasn't, and what might actually move the needle. My guest today is Dr. Robert Wachter, Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and the author of A Giant Leap, How AI is Transforming Healthcare and What That Means for Our Future.

He has spent years writing about technology in healthcare, including the rollout of electronic health records, and what that did and didn't deliver. We started by talking about how he's thinking about this current wave of AI, especially in the context of what healthcare has seen before. Dr. Wachter, welcome to The Gist Healthcare Podcast. Dr. Robert Wachter, My pleasure. Great to be here.

So I'm really excited to have you on the podcast to talk about your book, A Giant Leap, which just came out, because we've been talking about AI in healthcare and how it might disrupt the industry for a while now, especially since ChatGPT hit the scene a few years ago. And in your book, you take a pretty long view of, you know, technological advances within healthcare.

And so when you look at this particular moment, what actually feels new to you? And where might we be getting a little caught up in the bright, shiny object aspect of AI and potentially missing some of the pitfalls? Well, there's a lot that's new and some things that are old. And it's part of the reason I started the book with some history. You know, AI is not absolutely new in healthcare.

I mean, almost 40 years ago, there were some early academic groups and companies that sort of said, you know, healthcare is a big, important industry. People care about it. The stakes are high and it's pretty expensive. You know, computers can probably help. And they developed AI tools that turned out not to be ready for prime time. And the field kind of flamed out for about 40 years. And so I'm with you that I think this feels very new.

And I date it the same way you do, to November 30th, 2022, when ChatGPT was released to the public. The first time I tried it, it's like, whoa, this can do things that prior technologies could not do. And mainly simulating human reasoning and thought and language and able to read and understand, you know, plain text, which r...

AI in Healthcare: What’s Different and What Isn’t

Transcript

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AI in Healthcare: What’s Different and What Isn’t

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.