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How can AI improve health care? What is an example of AI affecting health care? What is the most significant barrier to AI in health care?
At SXSW 2024, AMA president Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, moderated a panel that addressed these questions and more. Dr. Ehrenfeld joins us today to share key takeaways from the panel's discussion and health care trends at SXSW. AMA Chief Experience Officer Todd Unger hosts.
- SXSW panels 2024: Listen to Dr. Ehrenfeld's panel, "AI, Health Care, and the Strange Future of Medicine." The 2024 South by Southwest physician panel with Dr. Ehrenfeld includes:
- Claire Novorol, MD, ADA Health
- Mark Sendak, MD, Duke Institute For Health Innovation
- Alex Stinard, MD, Envision Healthcare
- The AMA is your powerful ally in patient care. Join now.
Speaker
- Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, president, AMA
Transcript
Unger: Hello and welcome to the AMA Update video and podcast. AMA president Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld recently moderated a panel at South by Southwest about the future of AI in health care. And today, Dr. Ehrenfeld is joining us from Milwaukee to share some of the highlights and key takeaways from that discussion. I'm Todd Unger, AMA's chief experience officer in Chicago. Dr. Ehrenfeld, so glad to have you back.
Dr. Ehrenfeld: Thanks for having me, Todd. Great to see you.
Unger: Well, throughout your presidency, you've spoken a lot about digital health at conferences all across the country. I'm curious, what was unique about speaking at South by Southwest?
Dr. Ehrenfeld: Well, South by Southwest is like no other venue. It's this incredible conference really dedicated to creative people, helping creative people achieve their goals. It was created in the '80s. It happens in Austin every year. It's really known as this conference, festival, music place with a convergence of technology, the film industry, music, education, culture and health care.
Unger: And that's an interesting part, the health care part. And moving to your particular panel, I love the title of this, "AI, Health Care, and the Strange Future of Medicine." So we're going to talk about that. And in your opening remarks, you helped set the stage for the discussion. Why don't you give us a little bit of an overview of what you shared?
Dr. Ehrenfeld: Well, this was an audience for creators and innovators. And so everybody understands what a mess health care is right now and access challenges, costs, all of the struggles that patients face when trying to take care of themselves.
And what's so exciting for me about AI is that there is so much potential to improve every aspect. How do we deliver the care? How do patients experience the care? How do we train the next generations to deliver the care? How do we educate and re-educate physicians in practice? And if AI delivers on any of those promises, the health care of the future will be unlike anything we've ever experienced, and we need that.
And we also need a lot of creative innovators to help us shape that future to make sure that AI can deliver on this promise. There are so many steps that we need to take to make sure that a technology that's really in its infancy can help us deliver the care process, not worsen bias, worsen health inequities, but effectively fill care gaps, lift people up, lift up all communities. And that's really what the conversation was all about.
Unger: And I love that mix of the panelists getting to what you were talking about. You had somebody from a health system, a person from an academic institution and a person from a startup. So that's an eclectic bunch of folks. What were the top three takeaways from the discussion?
Dr. Ehrenfeld: Well, not just a wide range of individuals, but three physicians from those kinds of institutions. So the physician from a startup was talking about how do they make sure that a patient-facing tool that uses algorithms—they're incorporating AI—integrates into the care delivery system in a way that actually makes it easier for patients to get connected to the care teams that they need, ultimately, solve the problems.
The physician from the health system talked a lot about how do we make sure that we have standards, connectivity that can support the innovation that's happening across the ecosystem. And the physician from the health system talked about what it's actually like to use some of these emerging tools in their practice, in their health system. What are the considerations around acquisition of new technologies in the wild and how do we make those things more seamless for future adopters?
Unger: Now, it's interesting. When you were talking about the background on South by Southwest, and you talked about the roots of it and then you added health care to that mix, it is an interesting development. And your panel was just one of a number of different panels at the event that were focused on the future of health care. What else did you see that you thought were really hot topics at the conference?
Dr. Ehrenfeld: Well, at this conference, there's a lot of energy around speech, expression, creativity, because it's film. It's concerts. It's technology. And so, as you can imagine, there's a lot of conversation around democracy, around access to health care, around speech, reproductive rights, health care access, all converging in a really, really interesting place.
We are continuing, as we know, to see attacks on personal decision-making, attacks on the doctor-patient relationship, attacks on patient autonomy to make the most important, sensitive health care decisions for themselves. And that was clearly top of mind for a lot of folks in a variety of sessions.
Unger: Now, back in January, you also were at the Consumer Electronics Show. So now, you've got two of these big events, where I think people are probably more used to seeing companies like Samsung and Microsoft than they are the AMA. Why is it important for an organization like the AMA and these other health care leaders that were part of your panel to attend events like this?
Dr. Ehrenfeld: Well, there are really two reasons. The first is, we've got to beware the innovations happening so we can help shape and drive it. That's why we've made such an investment in our innovation ecosystem, the Physician Innovation Network, a free online platform to connect physicians, students, trainees and companies, entrepreneurs, technology developers. It's a driver behind our investment in Health2047 and in Innovation Studio out in Silicon Valley. But also, we have physicians going to these meetings, and that didn't used to happen 5, 10 years ago.
And I was amazed. In fact one, of the audience members at South by Southwest stood up and said, "I'm a physician. I burned out, and I decided to change careers. How can these technologies prevent people like me, who love medicine but just couldn't take it anymore stay in practice?" And so we're seeing lots of physicians at these meetings, and we obviously want to be there to support them, to learn what's happening, to make sure that the AMA is ensuring that we have technologies that work for everybody.
Unger: And there is so much potential for these technologies to take some of that burden off physicians. It's exciting. I can tell from just your responses to see all that innovation. And Dr. Ehrenfeld, thank you, because I think a lot of your energy has gone into this, and you're leading the way here. So thanks for being with us today.
The AMA is committed to making sure that AI and all technology that physicians use are assets, not burdens to them. So to support that work, I encourage you to become an AMA member at ama-assn.org/join.
And that wraps up today's episode, and we'll be back with another segment. Be sure to subscribe for new episodes and find all our videos and podcasts at ama-assn.org/podcasts. And again, thanks for joining us. Please take care.
Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in this podcast are those of the participants and/or do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the AMA.
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