Bob Wachter

He said, we need to accept VC funding.

We're not going to grow fast enough.

And she argued that we need to own the entire process here if we're going to create this integrated system where all the pieces fit together.

And he interviewed a couple of years ago.

He said, obviously, she was right and I was wrong.

They have been a massively successful company and the product they produce is quite good.

We use it and I'm reasonably satisfied with it.

I think over time, there's no way that a single company can produce the best AI tools for use cases,

that span the range from an AI scribe to an AI diagnostic support system to an AI tool that deals with the insurance company to an AI tool that facilitates clinical research.

There's just no way that one company sitting on farmland 10 miles from Madison can possibly do that.

Their ambition is to do that.

I think the world is a better place if this is more open to third-party innovators bolting in, and that's going to require more federal push to do that because that is not in the company's DNA.

So what do you see as the proper role of government in regulating AI in healthcare generally?

Well, I think that's one.

One is to create a level playing field and to be sure that innovators have a fair chance to succeed in an environment where there is a tendency toward monopoly, in part because of this idea that one company owns all your data.

The issue of regulating AI tools, I have a chapter on it, and I came up with the very unsatisfying answer of this is really hard.

And our existing structures, meaning the FDA or the Joint Commission, which currently accredits American hospitals, are not fit for purpose for this tool.

The FDA can regulate a new radiology tool because they've regulated devices forever.

They've regulated pacemakers and defibrillators, and they've regulated drugs.

They can regulate a tool that gives a static answer, the same answer three years from now that it gives today.