Clinicians Need AI Literacy Now

How deep into AI do clinicians really need to go? 

In this clip from our episode "Making Healthcare Massively Better", CareTalk host John Driscoll speaks with Halle Tecco about why becoming AI-literate is the only way to build real guardrails as patients use tools like ChatGPT at scale.

Listen to the full episode here

🎙️⚕️ABOUT HALLE TECCO 
I’ve spent my career working to fix what’s broken in healthcare, and support those trying to do the same. I’ve been investing in the future of healthcare since 2010 as an angel, LP, and the founder of Rock Health. 

Over the years, I’ve backed and advised dozens of healthcare startups, and today I serve on the boards of Cofertility and Collective Health. 

I’m an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, where I created and have taught the first MBA-level course on digital health investing since 2015. I’m also Course Director at Harvard Medical School, where I teach a course on healthcare innovation. 

When I first ventured into digital health, there were no guides—and most of the old guard wasn’t exactly welcoming. But now, I am the old guard 😉. And I believe healthcare needs all the talent it can get. That’s why I teach, write, and share insights through my podcast and upcoming book.

🎙️⚕️ABOUT CARETALK
CareTalk is a weekly podcast that provides an incisive, no B.S. view of the US healthcare industry. Join co-hosts John Driscoll (Chairman, UConn Health) and David Williams (President, Health Business Group) as they debate the latest in US healthcare news, business and policy. 

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Transcript

John: 0:07

There's just a lot of buzz about ai. There's a tremendous amount of, I mean, it was probably one of the most important themes of JP Morgan. Yeah. Last week in San Francisco. It's the most important theme in American business, arguably today.

Halle: 0:20

Yeah, absolutely.

John: 0:21

There are a lot of folks who are. Looking to leverage small ideas in large, small cap, small capital, in large amounts of capital in ai right now, what would your, uh, well, a, a, what's your recommendation for folks leveraging the new tools of artificial intelligence and big compute, uh, your, your book's about massively better? How can the Yeah. AI innovators be massively better?

Halle: 0:44

Yeah, well I actually gave a talk to, um, a group of therapists a few weeks ago and, um, you know, I said, I don't care if you believe that AI is going to do help or harm healthcare. You have to become proficient because we need you to understand how these tools work so that you can help build these guardrails. And so I'm really disappointed at hearing clinicians who. Are upset about AI being used and who are acting like Luddites, because I don't think that's helpful and I don't think that's actually going to change anybody's behavior. Patients are using. We know patients are using chat GBT at scale to ask health questions, so instead of. You know, instead of like opposing it. I think it's more important that we become experts, that we use the tools ourselves, that we understand how they work, we understand how these models are built to the best of our knowledge and a giant leap by Bob Watchers coming out very soon. I had a, uh, I read his, it's out footprint of it.

John: 1:50

It's out. It's out. It's, it's fabulous.

Halle: 1:52

It's great. I mean, I think that's a great place to start as um,

John: 1:55

doc Dr. Bob Wachter is, is gonna be on the show. Oh, great. Very soon. But it's

Halle: 2:00

wonderful.

John: 2:00

Great. Yeah,

Halle: 2:01

it's, you'll have a great conversation with him. He's, he's awesome and I feel like that's a great place to start. Read that book. Understand it and then be the change. I think speaking out about what guardrails need to exist within AI is far more useful than just complaining about the use of ai. I hear doctors complain about the AI tax. They're annoyed that their patient comes in with chat, GBT printout of questions that they think should be asked. Uh, I was like that. You're not gonna stop that.

John: 2:32

They used to be annoyed when people came in with Google searches. Exactly. Now that at least they're, they're, they're better informed. And so what are the Exactly, you know, as, as an innovator yourself and as someone who's funded a lot of innovators, what do you, what are the watch outs for AI and AI entrepreneurs today?

Halle: 2:48

Yeah, so I think that, um, what we're seeing is in the market is like you're either selling an AI product or you're trying to build AI into your business because otherwise investors aren't interested. Um, and so it's, it, it can be quite obvious from the investor's standpoint when you're, you're building a, a services business and you're. Just putting the word AI everywhere because you think you have to, I think coming up with a strategy for how AI will impact your business and how it can reduce your cost to serve, it can delight your users, et cetera. Like where are the actual, where's the actual leverage for AI in your business versus just throwing out buzzwords so that you can get investor interest.'cause I think good investors see through that and it's okay to not. Be an AI company. Right now I'm on the board of a company called Co Fertility. We're very much a services business. We, of course, use technology and software to streamline our operations and help our member advocates, uh, carry higher caseloads and be more effective and have higher and PS We, we use all of that and it's okay to be a services business. There are great services businesses in healthcare. Healthcare will always have a service component. Um, I think just be a little bit more strategic about how AI can realistically impact your business.