Bob Wachter

a few years ago about what are called cobots, robots that are collaborative.

This was in nursing homes in Japan.

They were these big physical robots that could help lift a patient clean and so on.

And the finding from research around them was that the healthcare workers actually loved it, A, and B, were able to lean into what they as humans are good at.

which is dealing with patients on a human level rather than just moving them around and getting them to the bathroom and stuff like that.

So if we use that as the sort of model here, let's say for a physician like yourself or maybe someone a generation or two younger, if AI unfolds the way that you're hoping it does in 10 years, let's say, what does the physician get to do that maybe they're really great at now that some of the burden has been lifted by AI?

I think the fundamental question of AI in healthcare is not creating my note or reviewing my chart.

It is computerized decision support.

It is the AI helping me make the best decision for you as a patient based on things about you, but also about the medical literature, which evolves, changes very, very quickly.

And the best decision is not only the one that provides the best outcome, but the one that's the most cost effective.

It's been said that the most expensive piece of technology in a healthcare system is the doctor's pen, which of course is no longer the pen, it's the keyboard.

Where this really will have an impact is

I'm seeing you in my office or in the hospital.

And it's not like I now pull out my phone and say, this is a 52-year-old man who comes in with this, this, and this.

The AI is already reading your chart.

It already knows all those things about you.

And it's suggesting in real time, suggesting diagnoses and suggesting what the right tests would be and what the right treatments would be.

Now, do you need me in that setting?

I think so, but we'll have to see.

I think you need me to interpret all of this, to be a tiebreaker when there's a tough call, to deal with some complex, sometimes ethical issues, to weigh your own preferences as a patient or family.