How AI can heal healthcare | Edmund Jackson | TEDxNashville

Healthcare is often seen as complex and expensive, but what if there was a way to simplify it? Dr. Edmund Jackson, CEO of UnityAI, believes artificial intelligence (AI) can help. He shares how AI can make healthcare easier for everyone, from patients to providers, leading to less suffering and more healing. This approach could change how we experience medical care.

The Problem With Healthcare: Too Much Complexity

Dr. Jackson's journey into healthcare AI began with a personal story. Years ago, he met Dr. John Berne, who was the Chief Medical Officer at HCA Healthcare. Dr. Berne explained the dangers of sepsis, a severe blood infection. If caught early, it's easily treated with cheap antibiotics. But if missed, it can lead to organ failure and death. Dr. Jackson's own father died from sepsis 20 years before this conversation, a death that might have been prevented with a simple, inexpensive treatment.

This experience showed Dr. Jackson that healthcare itself is sick. Despite having highly skilled doctors, advanced equipment, and effective treatments, healthcare often fails. Clinical quality, patient experience, and the massive $4.5 trillion annual cost in the U.S. all point to a system struggling with complexity. Every new tool or treatment, while good on its own, adds to this complexity, making things worse.

AI: A New Way to Simplify Healthcare

We need a new way to simplify healthcare, and AI is that technology. AI is essentially a machine that thinks like a human, but on a much larger scale. There have been different generations of AI:

• First Generation: Machines that could think logically, but were too complex and expensive to maintain.

• Second Generation: Machines that could do math and find patterns in data, like machine learning. This is why weather forecasts are so much better now.

• Third Generation (Current): Machines that understand human language. They can read, write, listen, and speak in all human languages, but on a massive scale. This is a game-changer.

One great example of this new AI is OpenAI. It's like a text input box, but it contains the entire internet. OpenAI's machine has read everything on the internet and can answer your questions. It doesn't simplify the internet itself, but it wraps it in a very simple interface—that text box. This idea of "wrapping complexity" is exactly what healthcare needs.

How AI Can Transform Healthcare

AI can simplify healthcare in many ways:

For Individual Doctors

Dr. Jackson shares the story of his friend David, a primary care doctor. David used to see 20-30 patients a day and spend a lot of time typing notes into electronic medical records. These notes are important for billing, insurance, government rules, and quality control. Now, David uses AI on his phone. The AI listens to his conversations with patients and takes notes for him. This AI wraps up all the administrative complexity into a simple, almost invisible interface. With AI, David can now see 60-70 patients a day, greatly increasing his productivity and lowering costs for patients.

For Hospitals and Clinical Teams

Hospitals are incredibly important places, but they are also very complex. They deal with everything from emergencies to births and organ transplants. The amount of information and coordination needed is more than any human brain can handle. But it's not too much for AI.

Imagine AI wrapping around an entire hospital. It would know the status of every patient and their journey. It could suggest the best next steps for all clinicians and staff, communicating with them in their own language. This kind of care coordination and administrative wrapping would reduce complexity, improve quality, and boost productivity.

Key Takeaways

• AI can simplify complex healthcare processes.

• It can improve doctor productivity and patient experience.

• AI can help coordinate care within hospitals.

• It can provide early warnings for serious conditions like sepsis.

• AI can empower patients and their families with critical information.

Preventing Sepsis with AI

One small example of this is the sepsis algorithm developed by HCA. A team of clinicians and engineers, including Dr. Jackson, created an algorithm that gives clinicians hours of early warning for sepsis. This tool has saved thousands of lives.

AI can do even more. Consider the tragic case of Martha Mills, a British teenager who died from sepsis after a bike accident. Her symptoms were all there, but doctors missed them. Imagine if AI had read all the medical books and clinical records. Such an AI would have recognized the sepsis. Even more powerfully, imagine this AI outside the traditional healthcare setting, helping Martha's family. It could have told them about her life-threatening condition and the urgent need for specialized care, giving them the information to advocate for her transfer and save her life.

The Future: Empowering Patients with AI

All this technology is available today. The core problem in healthcare is complexity. Every attempt to improve things with better tools and treatments often makes it more complex. We can't simplify healthcare through standardization because every person is unique. But we can simplify it through wrapping.

AI can wrap the administrative burden for a single doctor, the hospital operations for clinical teams, and most importantly, it can wrap the healthcare experience for you and me as patients. This empowers us to be active participants and decision-makers in our own care and the care of our loved ones. AI is not just a tool; it's a way to heal healthcare itself.