Mike Miliard

For the first in a three-part series, the CIO of the New Jersey health system and its president of advanced care operations describe how something started by necessity during the pandemic quickly evolved into something more substantial and valuable.

In this special hour-long episode, recorded in Chicago at the inaugural event, our hosts and guests offer a wide-ranging discussion about smart AI investments and strategic alignment. Produced in collaboration with the Straight Outta Health IT podcast.

The modernized, outcomes-focused AMAM is meant to help health systems keep pace with the rapid evolution of analytics technologies and artificial intelligence and "support equitable, data-driven decision-making at scale."  

Boston Children’s, CVS, Geisinger, UC San Diego and Wellspan are among the 28 providers and payers promising their AI and machine learning models are geared to ensure healthcare outcomes that are "Fair, Appropriate, Valid, Effective and Safe."  

The White House plan for "safe, secure and trustworthy" artificial intelligence wants the Department of Health and Human Services to have a mechanism in place to collect reports of "harms or unsafe healthcare practices," and act to remedy them.  

Sen. Mark Warner has questions for Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai about Med-PaLM 2, a chatbot currently being piloted at the Mayo Clinic and elsewhere. "I worry that premature deployment of unproven technology could lead to the erosion of trust," he says.  

He's concerned that the acquisition would "provide Amazon with access to enormous tranches of patient data."

With Google, Meta and others pushing the envelope in artificial intelligence research, Chirag Shah, professor at the iSchool at the University of Washington, talks about some practical and ethical considerations.

Patient and provider experiences have to be top-of-mind in the year ahead, with special attention to stressed hospital workers and underserved populations, healthcare vendor leaders say.

It's a seismic acquisition, one that was first floated more than 13 years ago. Now that it's finally happening (pending regulatory approval), observers assess the deal and offer thoughts on what's next.