Healthcare is Hard: A Podcast for Insiders

The digital transformation of healthcare has been a long and winding road, but one that is starting to open new possibilities in every aspect of business operations, care delivery and consumer experiences. The critical aspect to all of this is a newfound access to data.Dale Sanders and Ryan Howells have been at the forefront of the movement to unlock data in healthcare and help organization leverage it to actually drive business and clinical performance. As Principal at Leavitt Partners, Ryan works with the White House, Congress, HHS, and VHA on health care policy and interoperability issues. He also currently leads the CARIN Alliance, a multi-sector, public-private alliance focused on giving consumers digital access to their health information. Dale is Chief Strategy officer at Intelligent Medical Objects (IMO) where he closely analyzes market needs and challenges to set IMO’s strategic direction developing products that deliver critical data quality improvements and insights to improve patient care.In this episode of Healthcare is Hard, Keith Figlioli draws on the decades of experience Dale and Ryan have driving healthcare data policy and strategy. Their discussion touches on the intricate details of healthcare data, the everyday impacts that data can have on healthcare consumers, and many points in between. They cover topics including:Entering the “app economy” for healthcare. Ryan points out that almost every other aspect of the consumer world entered the app economy almost 20 years ago. But for healthcare, that transition is just starting. They talk about how the emergence of structured data eliminates the need to rely solely on legacy vendors to solve problems, and the potential it unlocks for creating new, billion dollar companies.Encouraging physicians to stage a riot. The group discusses how quality measures are creating administrative overhead, burning-out physicians, and affecting data quality in ways that many people don’t realize. With revenue streams that are tied to these outdated processes and make them difficult to change, a shift towards measuring outcomes will not be easy. What will it take? Dale says one option he’s encouraging is an uprising among physicians.The B-to-C-to-B data strategy. Data privacy has been a big hurdle to enabling the exchange of EHR data and patient information between organizations. But what if patients have full control of their data and can be the conduit between providers and other organizations? Ryan talks about how this can fundamentally change the issue of data portability by eliminating the need to negotiate and implement complex legal agreements required to exchange data between two organizations. They talk about how this strategy hinges on the ability to verify digital identities.Disrupting EHR incumbents. With so much change on the horizon and data access creating new possibilities for healthcare’s core infrastructure, should incumbent EHR vendors be nervous? Dale says a new enterprise infrastructure in healthcare – a next-gen EHR that’s focused on team-based care, not the encounter – is imperative. And he offers advice on how to get there. Ryan adds his belief that the industry needs a complete new coding system built for value-based care, not fee for service.To hear Keith, Dale and Ryan talk about these topics and more, listen to this episode of Healthcare is Hard: A Podcast for Insiders.

As the world emerges from the pandemic and U.S. health systems navigate a unique set of challenges they’ve never faced before, they’re fighting a battle on two fronts. They don’t have the luxury of dedicating all their resources towards the significant challenges they’re facing today. They also have to stay focused on innovation that will drive future growth, while finding the right balance between these priorities.Health systems can’t make these critical decisions in a vacuum – that’s why the information and expertise they get from Sg2, a Vizient company, is critical. As the nation's largest health care performance improvement company, Vizient serves more than 60% of acute care providers. Sg2 provides these organizations with unparalleled insight into local market dynamics and helps them anticipate healthcare trends that will be key to their success.John Becker leads Vizient’s Strategic Growth Solutions, including Sg2’s Intelligence, Analytics and Advisory Services, and the Vizient Research Institute. In this episode of Healthcare is Hard, John talks to Keith Figlioli about the issues that are top of mind for health system strategy and innovation leaders. They discuss topics including:Post-Covid collaboration. While the pandemic created extremely difficult conditions that persist today for providers, John sees a bright spot in how it taught their leadership teams to work together in different ways. As an example, he talks about how Sg2’s work extends more regularly beyond strategy teams and how those in other leadership roles are thinking differently about the future and their approach to competition.Innovating in a down market. John talks about the need to cut costs due to margin pressures, and the challenge health systems now face making sure they don’t cut areas that will drive future growth. He says he’s starting to see bifurcation in the market where strategy teams are splitting in two. One team is focusing on traditional care delivery and “same store growth,” while the other team works on reimagining the business altogether.The upside and downside of scale. As many health systems converge to drive efficiency through scale, diversification can help larger systems navigate difficult times. However as John points out, bigger ships can weather bigger storms, but it takes them much longer to turn. He says the key is centralizing certain functions and realizing that strategy deployment needs to incorporate the nuances of local markets where things like payer mix, employee base and demographics make a big difference.The CFO’s role in innovation. John says the most successful health systems right now are all finding the right balance around resource allocation, and he points out how the CFO is critical in achieving this. He says those that are too focused on costs are going to miss growth opportunities, and those that are focused too heavily on transformation will have trouble with operations. Carving out dollars to reimagine the business, while funding the core business at the appropriate level is a delicate balance, and one that savvy leadership teams are finding.To hear Keith and John talk about these topics and more, listen to this episode of Healthcare is Hard: A Podcast for Insiders.

It’s a difficult time for health systems who are struggling with financial pressures brought on by rising costs, patient volumes that continue to remain below pre-pandemic levels, and a host of other issues putting their balance sheets in the red. But at the same time, the need for innovation has never been greater. New technology will be essential to streamline operations and meet consumer demand for new care delivery models while staying ahead of big tech, retailers and others adding pressure for providers to evolve and transform.How can providers focus on getting business fundamentals back in order, while also looking to the future and accelerating their focus on innovation?On this episode of Healthcare is Hard, Sara Vaezy, chief strategy and digital officer at Providence, talked to Keith Figlioli about the need to address both of these issues at once – and how to do it. Some of the topics they cover include:New economics for providers. While there may have been an initial hope about getting through the pandemic and getting “back to normal,” it’s now clear that the fundamental economics of healthcare – especially for providers – will never be the same. Sara says the industry is starting to get comfortable with the notion that provider economics have eroded in a long lasting way. Recognizing this fact and finding new ways to diversify will be essential for providers to thrive.Building beyond acute care. Health systems are being forced to choose if they want to focus on being the center of acute care in their communities and be part of a larger network of services, or broaden beyond that to provide more elements of the network themselves. Sara says not every hospital or health system has the resources to expand on their own, but sees Providence on a path to becoming a “health company with a care delivery arm.” She talked about how this model could even give providers national scale, as opposed to operating within a geographic footprint.The importance of partners. Innovation is essential for every health system in one way or another, and Sara admits that it’s hard to do on your own. Those who cannot drive meaningful innovation themselves will be forced to consolidate or partner with others. Those who can and have been driving innovation will continue to do so, but Sara predicts that even they will form more innovation consortia and financing partnerships to focus on key areas where reach and scale will create a more efficient cost structure for innovation. This will also create more opportunities for entrepreneurs to work directly for or with health systems.The advantage of incumbents. It’s easy to be critical of healthcare incumbents, but Sara points out how important it is to not forget that they still deliver the vast amount of care at scale in the U.S. This is a significant advantage that can be amplified even more when incumbents work together. As she says several times, it’s difficult to drive innovation and the transformation of healthcare alone. Collaboration will be critical.To hear Keith and Sara talk about these topics and more, listen to this episode of Healthcare is Hard: A Podcast for Insiders.

Tim Kosiba was first exposed to the healthcare industry while working at the FBI in the 1990s as part of its Computer Analysis Response Team (CART). For more than 30 years, he worked at the highest levels of government driving the cybersecurity, digital intelligence and offensive cyber practices that keep the country’s critical infrastructure safe.Tim started his career in the Navy, working for the organization now known as the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), where he was successfully investigating digital crimes before the field of computer forensics was even established. In this role, he collaborated frequently with, and was soon asked to join the FBI, which was building its Computer Analysis Response Team (CART) to pioneer processes for investigating computer crimes and examining digital evidence.At the FBI, Tim worked closely with the National Security Agency, until he was asked to join the NSA directly. After more than a decade serving both domestically and abroad, Tim left NSA and joined the private sector to help advance the collaboration between public and private organizations on national cybersecurity interests.Tim now works closely with the American Hospital Association and healthcare organizations across the country as CEO at bracket f, a wholly owned subsidiary of [redacted]. And yes, “[redacted]” is the company’s name – it’s a startup built by a team of cybersecurity veterans with resumes that rival Tim’s. The company is focused on leveling the playing field by identifying and stopping threats, legally pursuing attackers, and bringing cybercriminals to justice.In this episode of Healthcare is Hard, Tim shares some of his insider knowledge with Keith Figlioli on topics of growing urgency for everyone in the healthcare industry – from providers, payers and life science companies, to the innovative startups transforming healthcare. Issues they discuss include:The state of healthcare cybersecurity. Tim says the healthcare industry has a lot of catching up to do. Unlike other industries, where security has always been part of the equation, the fact that security was not a primary concern when digitizing medical institutions has put healthcare behind. While he says things will get worse before they get better, Tim is optimistic for the future and sees positive activity like increased public/private partnerships. For example, he cites efforts to declassify more information and share it in a way that doesn’t divulge sources and methods so the industry can use it to be better prepared.Who’s attacking healthcare and why. The trend is very specific, according to Tim. He says it’s primarily state sponsored groups, often based in Russia. Some groups are directly sponsored by the state, while others are simply allowed to operate with impunity. The motivation is usually cash or chaos. After all, healthcare is part of a nation’s critical infrastructure and disrupting it can cause havoc and hardship, compromise intellectual property and much more.Implementing the basics. Tim recognizes the challenges healthcare faces balancing security with the demand for better consumer experiences. But he points out that many hospitals he works with don’t have cyber security basics in place, like incident response plans, penetration testing or two-factor authentication. He says there’s a knowledge problem, but it’s something that can’t be addressed until the industry accepts the cost of cybersecurity. As cyber insurance becomes hard to get and insurers mandate procedures like two-factor authentication, he says it may cause the tipping point we need.To hear Keith and Tim talk about these topics and more, listen to this episode of Healthcare is Hard: A Podcast for Insiders.

Marcus Osborne started his professional life as a White House intern and never intended to pursue a career in healthcare. In fact, he says he has a phobia of needles and doesn’t find much pleasure in daily work dealing with issues like insurance and disease. But he says healthcare kept finding him, and he admits that no other sector has more need for good, talented people trying their best to make progress.After a couple jobs in business consulting and time as Chief Financial Officer for the Clinton Foundation’s Health Access Initiative, Marcus landed at Walmart, where he ultimately became Senior Vice President of Healthcare Transformation. In January 2022, he stepped down from that role after spending 15 years at the world’s largest retailer driving key initiatives to increase healthcare access and affordability, including helping to launch Walmart Health and leading Walmart Health clinics.In this episode of Healthcare is Hard, Keith Figlioli taps into the knowledge and experience Marcus has gained through his career to explore issues including: Viewing healthcare through the consumer’s eyes. Looking back on his time at Walmart, Marcus says it was the best place to work on transforming healthcare since it is fundamentally a consumer company. But he also says it was sometimes the worst place given all the other competing priorities outside of healthcare at such a large organization. Marcus credits some of his biggest successes to one simple idea – that consumers are very clear about what they want, and what their challenges are. You just have to listen, and deliver.Retailer acquisitions. In addition to shedding light on the inner workings of Walmart and its ambitions to grow in the healthcare market, Marcus talks about the moves other retailers, including Amazon and CVS, are making through acquisitions. He views Amazon’s acquisition of One Medical as a Brilliant move that gives the company excellent operating talent around primary care, a physical presence to continue building the omnichannel healthcare experience, and strong value-based care components through One Medical’s earlier acquisition of Iora Health. He says the strategy is a home run, and talks about how it now comes down to integrating and execution.The future for health systems. Marcus and Keith talk about the idea of a health system as a community integrator. Instead of owning assets, they ponder the benefits for health systems that get better at partnering with outside organizations in deeper, more collaborative ways. For example, as the industry moves towards value-based care beyond Medicare, Marcus sees a big opportunity for health systems to create more efficiencies by being the community integrator around specialty practices in areas such as cardiology, maternity or musculosketal health.The opportunities for entrepreneurs: The great news for entrepreneurs, according to Marcus, is that the big players are far from figuring everything out. He compares the current state of healthcare innovation to the Internet in the 1990s where there was a tremendous amount of innovation and companies were focused on developing the best point solutions. For example, there were dozens of search engines, from Yahoo, to Google, Excite, Alta Vista, Ask Jeeves and many more. But Google ultimately emerged to unify the back end of search for everyone. Today in healthcare, Marcus points out how it’s becoming harder for consumers to learn how to deal with all the individual solutions in the market, and says they’re starting to look for someone to integrate everything for them.To hear Keith and Marcus talk about these topics and more, listen to this episode of Healthcare is Hard: A Podcast for Insiders.

Dr. Julian Harris developed a personal passion for home health and shifting care towards value watching his father and his grandfather serve as caregivers for his mother and grandmother, who both had complex health conditions. He started his professional life as a primary care doctor in community health centers and safety net hospitals, but with an interest in business, gravitated towards a career that has spanned the highest levels of provider, payer, government and many other organizations. He is now applying his knowledge and experience towards his passion for care at home, serving as chairman and CEO at ConcertoCare, a value-based provider of at-home, comprehensive care for seniors and other adults with unmet health and social needs.In addition to his role leading ConcertoCare, Dr. Harris is also an operating partner at the healthcare investment firm, Deerfield Management, and earlier in his career served as an advisor to Google Ventures (GV). He also led the healthcare team in the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and before that, served as the chief executive for the Massachusetts Medicaid program. Most recently, before joining Deerfield, Dr. Harris worked at Cigna, where he led U.S. Strategic Operations and internal investment in technology and innovation, and then served as President of CareAllies, a group of Cigna-affiliated population health management and home-based primary care companies.In this episode of Healthcare is Hard, Keith Figlioli’s conversation with Dr. Harris covers a wide array of topics related to healthcare innovation and new care delivery, including:The levers of shifting care towards value. Drawing on his perspectives from clinical, innovation and policy roles (at both the federal and state level), Dr. Harris describes how he thinks about the different levers that can be adjusted to improve quality while ensuring that healthcare is affordable. He talks about the main goal of incentivizing providers to practice evidence-based medicine and adjusting key levers including the number of people covered, level of benefits, negotiated rates with providers, and utilization, and how they all impact each other.The VBC journey for each category of home care. Dr. Harris discusses the broad range of services delivered in the home – from PT and OT, to infusion services, palliative care, hospice, and even home-based primary care. He talks about how organizations focused on individual components of home care are finding their way towards value, how Medicare and Medicaid are driving the movement, and the end goal of combining all the pieces for comprehensive care.Thoughtful acceleration of digital tools. While there are many barriers for aging patients to engage with digital tools, Dr. Harris is seeing thoughtful and effective execution by companies addressing issues like remote patient monitoring, medication adherence, and chronic condition management. He sees the most success with patients utilizing these tools in an integrated model and talks about the increasing role digital tools will naturally play as people engage more as they age, or before they develop complex health conditions.To hear Dr. Harris and Keith talk about these topics and more, listen to this episode of Healthcare is Hard: A Podcast for Insiders.

As a self-described latchkey kid growing up in Los Angeles, Dr. John Halamka says riding his bike to Raytheon, Hughes Aircraft and Aerojet – and pulling integrated circuits and manuals from their dumpsters to learn how they worked – lured him into the world of technology. Not long after, he started developing his first healthcare-related IT system, which he sold to UCLA when he was 14.Those experiences kicked-off a career where Dr. Halamka has worked at the intersection of technology and healthcare for five decades. Trained in emergency medicine and medical informatics, Dr. Halamka has served in many roles, including chief information officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for more than 20 years, where he oversaw digital health relationships with industry, academia, and governments worldwide. As the International Healthcare Innovation Professor at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Halamka helped the George W. Bush administration, Obama administration, and governments around the world plan their health care information strategies.In his current role as president of the Mayo Clinic Platform, Dr. Halamka leads a portfolio of platform businesses focused on transforming health care by leveraging artificial intelligence, connected health care devices and a network of trusted partners.In this episode of Healthcare is Hard, Dr. Halamka shares his perspective on the evolution of digital health and where the industry is headed through an in-depth conversation with Keith Figlioli. The topics they cover include:Mayo’s platform play. As president of the Mayo Clinic Platform, Dr. Halamka spends time explaining the organization’s view about what constitutes a platform and why it’s important. He describes it as an ecosystem that’s built to foster innovation at an extraordinarily fast pace. He contrasts the approach to other healthcare organizations where building collaboration is hard, and discusses how the Mayo Clinic Platform makes it easy for innovators to find mentors, access millions of de-identified patient records to test new technology, tap into thousands of clinical experts to address a problem, and so much more.The arc of healthcare IT. Dr. Halamka explains innovation in digital health – especially through the implementation of Meaningful Use over the past decade – with a quote from Winston Churchill: “Americans will always do the right thing. After they’ve tried everything else.” While it took a long time to arrive, he does not lament the journey and expresses optimism for the current state and future of digital health.Guardrails for AI and ML. Much like Google Cloud’s Aashima Gupta described in a past Healthcare is Hard episode, Dr. Halamka talks about the need for a standard set of metrics to measure the performance of AI models in healthcare. He views his career as seven or eight distinct periods of achievement including events like standardizing vocabularies or moving to APIs, and believes the next period will be about creating the guidelines, guardrails and transparency for machine learning in healthcare, and using it ubiquitously across the globe. Convergence of AI and ML models. Dr. Halamka says he is seeing an amazing array of startup activity creating models for niche purposes on multimodal data. He says there will be a huge number of model providers and talks about the importance of platform players being able to bring them together. He says data liquidity and a huge ecosystem of players coming together will be revolutionary in the ability for people to navigate their health care.To hear Dr. Halamka and Keith talk about these topics and more, listen to this episode of Healthcare is Hard: A Podcast for Insiders.

At the beginning of the pandemic when nursing homes were a hotbed for COVID-19 infections and many untimely deaths, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) began hosting daily phone calls where hundreds of facilities joined to quickly get and share information that would improve their response. It led to a larger project over the next year that included every nursing home in the country sharing knowledge and information, and is an excellent example of how IHI achieves its mission of helping to improve quality and outcomes by learning and teaching best practices.IHI was founded more than 30 years ago to improve the safety and quality of healthcare by studying how leading companies in other industries systematize processes to apply learnings across the healthcare ecosystem. Don Berwick, IHI’s founder, and Maureen Bisognano, president emerita, talked about the genesis of the organization as guests on the Healthcare is Hard podcast in February 2019. Since July 2020, the organization has been led by our guest for this episode: IHI’s current president and CEO, Dr. Kedar Mate.In this episode, Dr. Mate talked to Keith Figlioli about his background as an Indian-American and how time spent in his youth traveling between both countries helped drive him towards a career dedicated to addressing health related injustice and inequities. They discuss many facets of the work he’s doing at IHI including:Questioning IHI’s relevance. After three decades of measurable success working towards its mission, one of Dr. Mate’s first decisions as IHI’s new CEO was to audit the organization and its relevance in a rapidly-evolving healthcare landscape. He describes three core value propositions – the organization’s methods, ability to inspire, and quest for driving results at scale – and how they apply today.Teaching – and learning – globally. With so many challenges around quality, outcomes and costs to overcome in the U.S. healthcare system alone, Dr. Mate talks about why IHI has chosen a broader, global focus. Much like the organization’s mission of bringing knowledge from other industries into healthcare, its involvement in healthcare delivery around the world enables it to identify and share strategies that are working across healthcare economies. Measuring outcomes vs. process. Dr. Mate shares his belief about the current flaws in measuring care quality. He talks about how outcome-based measurement is underrepresented in favor of process-based measurement, and how the industry has a tendency to continue creating new measures without sunsetting old ones. He also shares the important reminder that measurement itself is not the objective, and that we must not lose sight of giving organizations tools and methods so they can actually change their measures and create better results.Quality and new care delivery. With new sites of care and options for virtual care continuing to grow, Dr. Mate and Keith talk about the role quality measurements will plan in the future of healthcare. They discuss the imperative for setting standards and measurements for virtual care and technology-enabled services, and how quality can become the major differentiator when there are no limitations on geographic boundaries.To hear Dr. Mate and Keith talk about these topics and more, listen to this episode of Healthcare is Hard: A Podcast for Insiders.

Dr. Meena Seshamani is responsible for the health care coverage of more than 63 million Americans and nearly one in every five healthcare dollars spent in the U.S. With the ultimate goal of keeping the people who rely on Medicare at the center of every decision, her role as the director of  the Center for Medicare at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) requires her to balance the personal side of healthcare with the complexities of the healthcare system at large. And she has a rare combination of qualifications that give her a profound expertise with both.As an ear, nose and throat surgeon, Dr. Seshamani has worked at leading health systems delivering care at the patient bedside and serving in senior executive leadership roles. As a PhD in healthcare economics, she has decades of healthcare policy experience. She recently served on the leadership of the Biden Administration’s transition team at the Department of Health and Human Services and was previously director of the Office of Health Reform where she drove strategy and led implementation of the Affordable Care Act across the department.This diverse background as a health care executive, health economist, physician and health policy expert gives her a unique perspective on how health policy impacts the real lives of patients.In this episode of Healthcare is Hard, Dr. Seshamani spoke to Keith Figlioli about her expansive role and her focus on the key pillars at Medicare: advancing health equity, driving innovation in healthcare, maintaining good fiscal stewardship and delivering high-quality, person-centered care. Their conversation covers several topics including:A day in the life of CMS. While every day is different, one recurring theme Dr. Seshamani discusses throughout the interview is the importance of listening to patients, staff, partners and others. She says her education and experiences have given her the humility to understand that no one person knows everything and that listening to all stakeholders is a critical component to realizing the power Medicare has to positively impact healthcare in America.Pieces of the Medicare puzzle. Medicare Advantage plans continue to grow in popularity and now account for more than 40% of Medicare enrollees. And while that means more people are transitioning away from traditional Medicare, Dr. Seshamani shares her thoughts about the continued importance of every piece of the Medicare program. The main objective is providing people with options so they can find the solution that works best for them which in turn, drives the system towards achieving the vision of greater health equity.Helping people navigate Medicare. With so many options in the Medicare program, especially with the proliferation of Medicare Advantage, it creates challenges to help seniors navigate them all. But Dr, Seshamani looks at that challenge and sees it as an opportunity. She talks about ways to provide people with the data and information they need to make decisions and the changes CMS is making to the Plan Finder to make that process easier. She also talks about adding additional oversight over third-party marketing for Medicare Advantage based on direct feedback she received about the confusion it can cause for seniors nationwide.To hear Meena and Keith talk about these topics and more, listen to this episode of Healthcare is Hard: A Podcast for Insiders.

Aashima Gupta was a rising star in the financial technology world at organizations including Fidelity Investments and JPMorgan Chase, but after her father passed away suddenly due to health reasons, she turned her technical talents towards improving healthcare. After five years in leading technical roles at Kaiser Permante and two years leading healthcare strategy at the API and analytics company Apigee, she became director of global healthcare solutions at Google Cloud through its acquisition of Apigee. While historically big tech has had little insight into what is happening on the ground within vertical markets – including healthcare – that paradigm is shifting. As part of this evolution, cloud infrastructure companies are tailoring solutions to meet specific needs and advance digital transformation within industries like healthcare. This is the crux of Aashima’s role at Google Cloud where she focuses on applying Google Cloud technology, machine learning, artificial intelligence, mobile and APIs to help companies in the healthcare ecosystem identify new care models, improve patient experiences, generate new revenue streams and securely share data.In this episode of Healthcare is Hard, Aashima talks to Keith Figlioli about her journey from Fintech to Digital Health and shares insight into Google’s strategy to transform healthcare. Topics they discuss include:The pace of innovation in digital health. Aashima recounts her transition to healthcare and the biggest differences with the pace of innovation. She had often dealt with mission critical systems in past roles at some of the world’s largest financial services organizations, but recognized quickly after moving to Kaiser Permanente that she was now dealing with life critical systems. She talks about the shifts in culture and mindset that a career in healthcare technology requires.Google’s most recent healthcare news. Google’s core mission is to democratize access to information, and its recent announcements about integrating features for scheduling medical appointments directly into search results shows how that mission extends to healthcare. These new features aim to address one of the most significant barriers to getting care: the ability to find an appointment. Aashima discusses how these new developments fit into Google’s larger vision for healthcare innovation and the company’s ongoing efforts to expand partnerships with third parties.Democratizing AI in healthcare. As a platform that fills a critical infrastructure role for organizations across the healthcare ecosystem – from payers and providers, to life science companies, tech vendors and more – Google Cloud places an intense focus on empowering these companies through advanced technologies like AI. With years of experience building, deploying and maintaining machine learning for its own use and incorporating that institutional knowledge into its cloud platform, Google is helping to democratize AI and accelerate healthcare innovation. As an example, Aashima points to customers that can train AI models using 80% fewer lines of code than they would need otherwise.Responsible use of AI. Google recognizes the power of AI and the equally powerful questions it raises about using it responsibly – especially in healthcare. Aashima shares how Alphabet CEO, Sundar Pichai, has been directly involved with the company’s principles for responsible AI innovation. She talks about how the company uses tools like “model cards,” which describe AI algorithms in a similar way to nutrition labels on food packaging, and how it’s pushing for these to play a foundational role in the future of AI.To hear Aashima and Keith talk about these topics and more, listen to the full episode of Healthcare is Hard: A Podcast for Insiders.