The Meaningful Particulars of A.I. in Healthcare -- A Riveting Interview with Microsoft's Tom Lawry

Whether you were one of the mini-city citizens of HIMSS this year or are a regular reader of healthcare content, you simply cannot avoid what I like to call 'AI Wonka-land'. There is hardly a payer, provider, pharma company or vendor who does not directly or indirectly have some type of initiative or inclusion in this fast-growing area of technology.

Recently, I taped one of the more riveting episodes of the RED HOT HEALTHCARE leader show, as I engaged on the particulars of A.I. with Microsoft's Director of Worldwide Health Tom Lawry.

In this leader role, Tom works with health providers, payers, and governments in planning and implementing innovative technology solutions that improve the quality and efficiency of health services delivered around the globe.

Microsoft also released a free and downloadable e-book called The Future Computed: Artificial Intelligence and its role in society. A recommended read, where the company portrays an interesting and needed perspective on the future design, responsibilities and social aspects of A.I.

In this show, Steve and Tom discuss these subjects and many more:

? Bias, transparency, and safety with A.I.

? The necessity of HR re-training for the established workforce

? Shoehorning A.I. into software solutions

? Impact on, and necessity for administrative costs

? Drug pricing and A.I. solutions

? Tom's view on the 'one-hit wonders'

? Balancing the technology with the social movement

? The over-hype and 'sniff-test' of A.I. solutions in healthcare

And SO MUCH MORE...

* IMPORTANT: You can listen to this complete podcast audio by clicking this link -- or finding 'Red Hot Healthcare' on your favorite podcast application.

The following is a teaser snippet of transcript from this engaging interview.

DR. STEVE: "I would say that replacing jobs is really a natural by-product of what A.I. is doing. That is, making human-based tasks more efficient, safe and scalable. As salaries and benefits are typically the top costs, especially in healthcare, why wouldn't we expect that if you're going to improve tasks in this way, that job's wouldn't be lost?"

TOM LAWRY: "You know, the value and promise of artificial intelligence is to automate and streamline much of what's done today by humans. It does that by the growing capabilities to mimic human types of behavior and performance. So that is the value proposition everyone is moving toward.

As that happens, there is no question there will be certain job types that are displaced by A.I. That's the very nature of the promise people are trying to deliver on.

What's really important is this. In the past, technology innovation always increases the number of jobs - rather than decreases. If you go back to when ATMs were introduced by the banking industry, as that happened the number of tellers actually went up.

The ATMs relieved tellers of these highly repetitive activities and allowed them to focus on true customer service. We see this in healthcare, as there are certainly positions with repetitive manual tasks that are going to be replaced - but creating positions that will play at a higher value.

Gartner did a great report where they looked at the number of jobs to be displaced between now and 2020. They also looked at the number of new jobs to be created, and their conclusion is that there will be a net gain of about 500,000 jobs because of artificial intelligence."

DR. STEVE: "I definitely think that in the short term, between now and 2020, I would agree with you.

What I'm concerned about is not the Generation Z or future generations with STEM training...but with today's existing and older workforce - especially on the admin side. I've seen numbers at Duke Healthcare system, there is something like 1,500 humans that handle all the billing to insurance.

And I'm not saying one computer or one A.I. program would replace all 1,500 people Tom - but you take that, and you know all health systems have this type of setup. You start looking at replacing these manual processors with A.I. and automation for greater efficiency, less errors, and better scalability.

Well great! You know that these admin costs will certainly start to come down and businesses will not have to concern themselves as much with salaries, benefits, personality issues, hiring, firing, vacations, and human-based emergencies. But what happens to THOSE people is my concern."

TOM LAWRY: "I would say you're spot on. This is part of A.I. being not just a technology, but also a social movement.

The first thing to do is to think about your job. What percentage of it is mainly repetitive tasks vs. the skills needed to do intellectual capitalism. If most of what you do is not reasoning, problem-solving and creativity, chances are you're going to be a lot more vulnerable.

The other point, which is very important is that as A.I. is screaming into a lot of organizations (including healthcare), the technology investments are getting way ahead of what I call the 'A.I. meets HR conversations'.

There was a recent study done by Accenture which interviewed executives who related their belief that 90% of their workers were not ready for A.I. in the workplace. And yet of that group, only 3% were doing anything such as retraining and focusing on their responsibility to help transition those employees - wherever possible, into new role that took advantage of their skills.

I think it's a huge issue. Everyone in the workplace today and in the next few years will be impacted."

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The Red Hot Healthcare podcast is one of the top leadership shows in healthcare. It is NOT pay-for-play and suggestions on future senior guests and influencers are welcome.

DR. STEVE AMBROSE is a highly-dynamic healthcare leader & influencer who carries relationships with many senior executives in multiple industry segments.

He has a 20+ year history in patient targeting, engagement, acquisition and retention. He has more recently led strategy and marketing communications for a national online consumer company with millions of customers.

Dr. Steve is current receiving & reviewing full-time leadership/team role opportunities. CV + Interests HERE.

He and his wife recently co-founded the fast-growing ??Walk The Ridge movement for improving the online and workplace practice of civility in January 2018.