Amanda Wilde (Host): Artificial intelligence, or AI, is a powerful tool. Holy Cross board member, Dr. Jacqueline Watson, offers insight on how AI fits into healthcare.

This is Your Best Life Podcast from Holy Cross Health. I'm Amanda Wilde. Welcome, Dr. Watson. Thank you for being here.

Dr Jacqueline Watson: Thank you, Amanda. Thank you very much for having me.

Host: Well, let's talk about your work on the board. First of all, can you speak to your job off the board? You are the President and CEO of Health Concepts International. What is that, and what is your position there about?

Dr Jacqueline Watson: So, Health Concepts International is a small boutique healthcare management and consulting company in the Washington, D.C. area. I am the Founder and CEO of that organization. And we are essentially a network of experienced and diverse consultants who add value in healthcare spaces around strategic management. And we ensure that organizations looking to improve health outcomes are able to do so in an efficient manner. We actually focus on four practice areas: health and wellness, health education, health planning, policy and program development, and health regulation and compliance. So, those are the rubrics within which we operate. And happy to talk more about that as well, but I know we're here to talk about Holy Cross Health.

Host: Well, you are on the board of directors, and now we know why. As a member of Holy cross Health's board of directors, can you speak on your role there?

Dr Jacqueline Watson: Sure. I have been a part of the Holy Cross Health Board for just about three years. And I currently chair the Quality Patient Safety Committee, as well as I sit on the Mission and Population Health Committee. I'm very, very excited and enthusiastic to participate in giving back to an institution, an organization that was actually very helpful to my family in a time of need, as they took care of my dad a few years ago when he needed some care.

Host: And how is it your position to talk about AI in healthcare? What's your background there?

Dr Jacqueline Watson: So, my background is just as a healthcare professional in a space that I know needs a lot of attention and where technology has been moving rapidly ahead of those of us who are actually in the space and working in the space. And it behooves us all to educate ourselves to be curious, and eager to learn as much as we can about this technology that has tremendous potential for our industry, as well as some areas that we need to be concerned about. And so, I don't want anyone to think I'm by any means an expert in AI, but what I consider myself is an eager and curious student of AI. And because of the space I sit in, it is important for me to become more knowledgeable about it and engage in as many conversations as I can so that I can be a part of the solution to healthcare in this country.

Host: And this is a timely subject because the technology, as you mentioned, is coming up so fast. First of all, let's define what AI is as it applies to the healthcare industry.

Dr Jacqueline Watson: Certainly. And I'll say that the technology is not necessarily coming up fast. It's been there. And I think those of us in the healthcare space are actually a bit behind the curve ball because the techies have been running with this, and not just in our industry, IN all industries, quite frankly. But it really is, what I would say, it deals with computer algorithms, complex medical data and involves using computer algorithms to process and interpret medical information and predict diagnoses that will suggest potential treatment options. So, it's capable, it's essentially just a computer algorithm and software that mimics human cognitive functions in order to analyze medical data.

Host: What are some examples of AI being used healthcare settings?

Dr Jacqueline Watson: So, there are some great examples. Some of the areas I'm particularly excited about is like personalized medicine, where AI can analyze patient data, genetic information, identify personalized treatment options. So, it's almost like it's personalized, tailor made for you, your unique biology and health history. So, that's encouraging.

Definitely monitoring, which is already being used, the technology's being used. Some of these devices that are able to track one's blood pressure, one's heart rate, send messages back to the healthcare provider, alert us to the fact if you are out of the safe zone with respect to any of those health areas, and quickly able to detect abnormalities.

Administratively, it's being used and encouraged quite a bit in healthcare to reduce some of the administrative burden that healthcare providers experience. We've been talking a lot about burnout and figuring out how some of these mundane, redundant activities that we do from an administrative perspective can actually be managed by the technology to free up the healthcare provider to use their skill sets in the most productive manner and thus, reduce burnout.

There are the robots. I don't think it's new, but we've been hearing about robotic surgery for quite some time. And what's happened is, you know, the technology has evolved. And you have these AI-powered robots that can assist in surgery, rehab, other medical procedures. And what's good about that, it's reducing the risk for medical errors. Humans make errors and the technology helps to mitigate and minimize errors.

So, I could go on and on, but there are lots of uses and encouraging news around AI and how it's being used in healthcare settings.

Host: It's interesting what you're saying that robotics and robots have been around a long time, but that the technology is now advancing in a way that we can use it to streamline all these processes in medical care. What are some of the ethical concerns with the use of AI in healthcare?

Dr Jacqueline Watson: So, I think that's what has everybody paused and thinking about how do we make sure this technology evolves in a responsible manner. And when we think of biases in healthcare, so I mentioned these are algorithms, and algorithms also involves complex medical data, well, that means it's the product that we get on the other side of AI, is only as good as what goes into it. So, the quality of the data, the diversity of people who participated in contributing to the data, all of that is extremely important so that when we actually use AI, we're confident in knowing that whatever the diagnosis is, whatever the treatment option is that's being encouraged, is actually really culturally competent and relevant for the patient that is actually being treated.

So as with any emerging technology, there are a lot of ethical concerns. People are concerned about data privacy and security. This has been a big area in healthcare. I think we've been what we call the laggards pretty much in most of the industries. There's always been a concern about healthcare data. It's people's personal sensitive data. And making sure that the right privacy controls and security is in place to protect one's health data so that it's not used against them in certain settings. We want to make sure that in terms of informed consent, there are some concerns about how AI operates currently. And that people may not necessarily know what they're actually consenting to and how their data is ultimately going to be used. And so, making sure that the right controls are in place for one to actually control their own health information.

Regulation and oversight, this is an area that I know we're all looking very closely at, because we want to make sure that it is used responsibly and ethically. And in order to make that happen, actually, it requires a diverse set of healthcare professionals and others sitting at the table to help move this forward. It's going to take all of us coming to the table to decide as a culture how we want to have AI progress, especially in the healthcare space.

Host: It's amazing how much company culture comes into play in something that we're talking about ethical possibilities with AI. So, these are all concerns you have to keep in mind and respond to as the technology is emerging. Do you see upcoming trends and advancements in AI that will further impact the healthcare industry?

Dr Jacqueline Watson: Absolutely. I think the potential for AI, it's going to revolutionize healthcare, right? And I recall it was back right before the pandemic started, I was at a meeting with the founder of AOL, Steve Case. And it was in a room of mostly non-healthcare people, it was a conference on leadership and him talking about different areas. And I asked him a question about what was he most hopeful for with respect to healthcare. And he said healthcare held the brightest spot for us moving forward, that the potential for how AI can be used to help the healthcare industry to reduce biases, to reduce healthcare disparities to improve health equity has not even been tapped into yet. And that's where we need to drill down.

The precision medicine and personalized medicine side of it in terms of you think that you may have a certain type of cancer, AI may be able to predict way ahead of time that you're prone to that cancer, if you come down with that cancer, specifically outline the treatment options to treat that cancer for you. So, really personalize it so that you get the best outcome. The drugs that are in place, that it's being used to accelerate drug discovery. And it was used definitely with COVID. So, we are going to have drugs being produced at a much more rapid pace than in the past, because the technology is there to analyze how the drug would actually behave in humans and in the communities. So, this is going to lead to vast potential in terms of what is out there as treatment options for those of us who have particular ailments.

We talked about the ethical areas. There's a remote monitoring and telehealth. Telehealth has become a big word during the pandemic in particular. It became rapidly adopted during the pandemic. But telehealth has been around for more than 30, 40 years. We just had not been using it and we had not been using it on a wide scale because there had been issues around reimbursement. A lot of those things went away during the pandemic and we've all recognized the benefits of telehealth and its ability to provide access to care to people where they are at. So, you don't have to leave your home and you can still receive care that you need.

So, the potential is great. And I think we haven't even thought of some of the things yet. This is what we know so far. And what we know so far, of course, also causes the concerns about, well, we have to make sure we're responsible with this because you can see the downside of this is if it's used inappropriately, it can cause devastation to societies, so we are going to have to set the right framework and put the right guardrails in place, agree to what those need to be, as we move forward in our society.

Host: And always be cognizant of that side of the AI equation. You just touched on something, which is cost. And to wrap things up, can you talk about your involvement in raising money for the Holy Cross Health foundation?

Dr Jacqueline Watson: Oh, wow. That's something near and dear to my heart and my family's heart. I mentioned earlier on that Holy Cross was very good to us. It was the place that my dad, the patriarch of our family, received care during COVID. And as a result of that, we started up a foundation called the RalRosa Foundation. And we raised funds for health-related causes, and one of those causes is Holy Cross Health Foundation. And that's our way of giving back to the institution and organization that was good to us. We do a fundraiser every year, it's called the Rum & Rosé Fundraiser. It's at the Hillwood Museum in Washington, D.C. The third fundraiser will take place on June the 22nd. And we've committed to donate $25,000 to the Holy Cross Health Foundation by 2026. And they've been the recipients of funds so far of 15,000. So, we're close, getting very close. But we as a family feel it's important to make sure that the funds are available to take care of patients, that it allows Holy Cross to be innovative and explore all options available to us to provide high quality care to patients. And technology adoption is critical, it's costly, and we all need to do whatever we can to support our healthcare institutions in providing quality care for our residents, wherever they may be.

Host: What a great way to give back to Holy Cross Health in perpetuity. Thank you for that, for sharing your expertise, and explaining the role of AI in healthcare.

Dr Jacqueline Watson: Thank you so very, very much for having me today. It was delightful speaking with you.

Host: Same here. That was Holy Cross Health Board Member, Dr. Jacqueline Watson. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out our entire podcast library for topics of interest to you. I'm Amanda Wilde. Thanks for listening. This is Your Best Life Podcast presented by Holy Cross Health.