Health IT

ChatGPT in health care: risks, benefits, and safer options

Tech
August 15, 2025

As technology becomes increasingly embedded in clinical workflows, many health care clinicians are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help lighten the charting load. One of the most buzzed-about tools is ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot that seems like it can do everything from planning your next vacation to California, analyzing the best applications for a job, to writing your History of Present Illness (HPI) for a diabetic patient.

Before …

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Why our fear of AI is really a fear of ourselves [PODCAST]

Podcast
August 13, 2025
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Physician executive Bhargav Raman discusses his article, “Why fearing AI is really about fearing ourselves.” He argues that the common doomsday predictions about artificial intelligence are a projection of our own human …

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How interoperability solves the biggest challenges in health care [PODCAST]

Podcast
August 11, 2025
YouTube video

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Physician executive Steven Lane discusses his article, “Why interoperability is key to achieving the quintuple aim in health care.” He explains that true interoperability is not just about technology but about aligning …

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How AI is finally fixing the electronic health record [PODCAST]

Podcast
August 9, 2025
YouTube video

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Physician executive Laura Kohlhagen discusses her article, “Here’s what providers really need in a modern EHR.” She argues that since electronic health records were originally designed for billing and …

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Why AI must support, not replace, human intuition in health care

Tech
August 9, 2025

When I was a new hospitalist in a tertiary center, I once told a colleague, “Looks like I got an easy admit.” He just stared at me.

It didn’t take long to understand why.

Vitals can be stable. Labs can look clean. But patients—especially those we assume are “simple”—rarely are. There’s a language beyond numbers: the way a patient breathes, a hesitation in their tone, the look in a spouse’s eye. Over …

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Why health care reform must start with ending monopolies

Tech
August 7, 2025

Monopolies thrive on control. In U.S. health care, that control is quietly breaking the system from within. Today, a small group of supplier-funded entities, including GPOs, PBMs, EHRs, MMIS vendors, and EDI platforms, dictate costs, suppress innovation, and hoard the data that hospitals need to operate effectively.

If we want real health care reform, we must start with monopoly reform.

1. Skyrocketing costs driven by opaque contracts. When a handful of players …

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Why smartwatches won’t save American health care

Physician
August 7, 2025

History has a habit of repeating itself.

Just prior to the 1929 crash, ads supporting the presidential candidacy of Herbert Hoover promoted a tag line promoting prosperity that has lived in infamy: “A chicken for every pot and a car in every garage.”

Now we have Robert Kennedy—our Secretary of Health and Human Services, the cheerleader for the “Make America Healthy Again” movement—promoting another grand idea to solve our nation’s …

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AI can help heal the fragmented U.S. health care system

Tech
August 6, 2025

The U.S. health care system is a paradox. It’s the most expensive in the world—costing over $4.5 trillion annually—yet produces some of the worst health outcomes among developed nations. Fragmentation is at the core of this crisis. Patients bounce between primary care doctors, specialists, emergency rooms, and insurers, often with no single point of coordination. The result? Redundant tests, misdiagnoses, delayed care, and frustrated clinicians.

Enter artificial intelligence—not as a silver …

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Why GenAI pilots fail in health care—and how to fix it

Tech
August 4, 2025

Building health care AI pilots is easy; getting them to succeed at scale is a challenge.

According to a recent report from Bessemer Venture Partners, AWS, and Bain & Company, only 30 percent of GenAI health care pilots reach production, where an even smaller number will go on to be successful.

This is partly because many health care organizations are in “throw it at the wall and see what sticks” mode …

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Choosing the best EHR for your new behavioral health business

Tech
July 28, 2025

Clinicians who dream of starting a private practice in the field of behavioral health rarely daydream about the logistics involved. But preparing for common challenges is fundamental to success. Before taking on the roles of both behavioral health provider and entrepreneur, it is important to consider all of the behind-the-scenes work required.

Defining a practice’s niche, navigating regulatory and legal considerations, creating a business plan and a budget, and developing a …

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How AI, animals, and ecosystems reveal a new kind of intelligence

Tech
July 26, 2025

As a surgeon, I’m trained to make decisions quickly—based on anatomy, evidence, and pattern recognition. But outside the OR, I’ve been thinking more deeply about something abstract yet everywhere: intelligence. What is it, really? And who or what gets to be called “intelligent”?

We often associate intelligence with humans—or more specifically, with traits like memory, logic, and verbal reasoning. The smarter someone is, we assume, the more they think like us. …

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Rethinking medical gatekeeping in the age of AI

Tech
July 23, 2025

The other day, I was deep in conversation with my co-founder, Aaron Patzer, reflecting on how we each approach health concerns in our personal lives. Despite my background in emergency medicine and his in tech, we had surprisingly similar medical information seeking habits: We both turn to large language models (LLMs), tap into our networks, and—when possible—avoid visiting a doctor.

What struck me wasn’t just our shared behavior, but how universal …

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The future of clinical care: AI’s role in easing physician workload

Tech
July 17, 2025

Walk into any emergency room across the country and you’ll see familiar scenes: crowded waiting rooms, overstretched resources, and overworked physicians balancing patient care with substantial administrative burdens. Against this backdrop, physician burnout remains unacceptably high (48.2 percent of physicians), with clerical duties cited as the most common cause. Many physicians also spend significant time after working hours catching up on …

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Why Grok 4 could be the next leap for HIPAA-compliant clinical AI

Tech
July 12, 2025

When ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022, many clinicians glimpsed the future then ran smack into a wall of red tape labeled “HIPAA.” Since then, large-language models (LLMs) have matured from clever chatbots into workhorse tools that summarize admission notes, draft prior-authorization letters, and even suggest antibiotic dosing. Yet most models still sit outside the guarded perimeter of protected health information.

Grok 4, the next-generation model from xAI, could …

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AI is already replacing doctors—just not how you think

Tech
July 10, 2025

When I was a young bonnie lad of just 16, I was lucky enough to score a meeting with Sandy Napel, PhD at Stanford University’s Radiological Sciences Laboratory (RSL). I demonstrated a prototype algorithm that automatically identified the position and course of arteries on CT scans. It was the first shot in a nearly decade-long academic research career that included early publications on using neural networks (the precursor to today’s …

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A mind to guide the machine: Why physicians must help shape artificial intelligence in medicine

Tech
July 6, 2025

I do not fear artificial intelligence—nor do I revere it. What I feel toward the rise of intelligent systems in medicine is something quieter: a tempered trust, a measured hope. I recognize their immense potential, but I also hold firm to the belief that the deepest work of medicine happens not through automation, but through human connection. There is a quiet power that lives between symptom and story, between numbers …

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How digital tools are reshaping the doctor-patient relationship

Tech
July 4, 2025

In this era of digital revolution in health care, the traditional physician-patient relationship is undergoing a significant transformation. Digital tools, including telemedicine, electronic health records (EHRs), artificial intelligence-based diagnostics, and various fitness applications, are reshaping how patients and clinicians interact and manage health together. While these innovations surely provide efficiency and accessibility, they also present significant challenges to the fundamental aspects of medical practice: trust, empathy, and human connection. As …

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The promise and perils of AI in health care: Why we need better testing standards

Tech
July 3, 2025

There is substantial enthusiasm around the advancements of AI in health care, as exemplified by the media attention for the new HealthBench release from OpenAI and similar recent studies from Google (MedPalm2, AIME). Market enthusiasm often leads us to believe that we’re on the brink of AI doctors treating patients worldwide. However, while these developments represent interesting technical progress, they fall short of demonstrating readiness for clinical application.

The stakes …

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3 tips for using AI medical scribes to save time charting

Tech
July 2, 2025

If you’re a clinician who’s tired of staying late at the clinic, bringing charts home, or sacrificing your lunch just to catch up on documentation—you’re not alone.

Documentation burnout is one of the top contributors to job dissatisfaction and work-life imbalance for health care professionals today.

Fortunately, new tech tools are offering a way out. Enter AI medical scribes—artificial intelligence (AI) technology that can save you so much time charting!

AI medical scribes …

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How I learned to stop worrying and love AI

Education
July 1, 2025

Is artificial intelligence going to replace physicians? I think the most accurate answer that can be given at this point is “maybe.” Either way, vehemently denying the mere possibility serves no one. If the takeover does happen, being proactive (rather than reactive) and carving a meaningful space for the physician workforce in light of AI leaves us better off than sitting on the sidelines as the next chapter begins. And …

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