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Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Dr. Maulik Purohit, Chief Health Innovation Officer at datosX Digital Health Labs
00:08:40
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- [00:00]
A
Hello and welcome to the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. I'm joined today by Dr. Malik Pirohit, Chief Innovation Officer at Panhealth and Chief Innovation Officer at Danosex Digital Health. Malik, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
- [00:12]
B
Thank you, Jeremy. I appreciate the kind introduction. My name is Malik Prouth. I'm a physician with background. My specialty is in brain injury, neurotrauma and neuroscience in general. And then my administrative side is serving as innovation lead for PAM Health, pam, which is a post acute medical hospital system across the country and also serving as Chief Innovation officer for Datos X which is a digital health company. And we focus on validation of technologies in the healthcare space. And so I've got the perspective of both the health system side, which I'm still currently on, as well as the industry side and how to join those together to help advance digital technology for healthcare.
- [00:57]
A
That's fantastic. And so the UN recently met and AI was one of the things they discussed. What are your big takeaways from that?
- [01:05]
B
Oh, great question and very timely. You know the un, which is a group of many organizations around the world and they had AI as a pretty big topic. And it's interesting because it's one of the first times that's been on center stage, so to speak globally in terms of from a geopolitical and other areas and especially an organization like the un. And some of the things that they talked about to me were interesting. One was global governance and binding agreements across all nations. How do you have a way to monitor this technology which is innovating literally by the second, because it's the first time we've had a technology that innovates itself on its own and develops itself over time. And so it creates a new challenge of how do you govern, how do you make sure it's safe, how do you make sure that it's giving the right information? How do you support people in the right way? How do you have countries come together on this instead of having separate laws that create different issues? How do you have safety and responsibility? How do you account for potential impacts, both positive and negative? And so there's been a lot of topics in this space of AI that are huge, not just healthcare, but in all aspects of the world, whether it be healthcare or food insecurity or violence, or mining for minerals, chips, creation technology in terms of advancing. And so it's a huge topic and health care is obviously one of the big components of that. But this is something that's bigger than any one industry and really is a true global challenge in terms of having technology that supports and helps people and negating or mitigating at the very least, some of the downsides of a technology like this.
- [02:58]
A
So given that every country is ultimately independent when it comes to the regulation, they're all still part of, you know, various multination organizations. What do you see as the challenges when it comes to the regulation here and what are your thoughts around that?
- [03:15]
B
A great question, and there's no easy answer, right. And what I'm going to do with you is sort of think through what's out there, what's in the news, and add my opinions on it. But this is really purely speculation because it is such a huge challenge that no one person, no one country can come up with an answer individually because it does require as much as each country may be independent. And we're in this phase where a lot of countries are focusing on themselves and country a first, enclosing borders, etc. At the very same time, we're in a fabric, in an ecosystem where we are interdependent on every other nation for something, whether it be big or small. And so we have to work together whether we want to or not. For example, AI is big, but you need chips. Well, chips, you need minerals, you need technology to manufacture the chips, you need to ship the chips to different places. So even if you wanted the AI, it's an interdependent network of countries that have to work to even create the infrastructure to have AI function. And so we are tied to each other. And to me, this is similar to the conundrum we have with outlets. For example, right? If we travel, any of us that's traveled internationally, when you have a device to plug in, it becomes a challenge, right? If you go to a different country, you have to have a different outlook per country almost at times. But at some point people came together and although there's still slight differences, in most of Europe, there's one outlet type, in South America, there's generally one outlet type in many places in all of the U.S. there's one outlet type. History of the U.S. is even within the U.S. we have different outlet types. And so we were able to come together on something as fundamental and as important as the type of outlet to plug something into. And that happened because we all came to the table, we all collaborated, we talked, we discussed ideas, we went through pros and cons of doing things a different way. And I think it's the same process we have to follow as a global nation. And all of us in this world coming Together and saying, okay, how do we address AI the best way possible, and the sophistication of it for security reasons, for mining reasons, for industry, for healthcare, et cetera? How do we come together and come up with a set of guidelines or principles? Coming with the rules or laws is tough because as soon as you come with a rule or law, someone's going to find a way to find a loophole around it. But can we come up with at least some guiding principles or philosophy, sort of like a constitution for AI across the world that we can all subscribe to and say, this is what it is, and then based on that philosophy and principle, apply it in different ways to technology as it evolves literally by the second in many ways.
- [05:57]
A
So given your background when it comes to AI specific to healthcare, what would you recommend or what would your recommendations be here?
- [06:06]
B
Yeah, great, great question. I think at the beginning, the first thing is we have to have some methodology of validating the technology and discussing how do we know that the technology is safe first and foremost, right in healthcare? We start with do no harm. That's the basic premise and starting point for anything in healthcare. If we say that is the basic tenant, then how do we ensure that? Well, the first thing is to then have the proper research methodology to talk about validating different tools that are out there, whether it be an AI algorithm for EKGs, whether it be a biowareable that takes our data, whether it be a health app for weight loss, whatever it may be. There's so many things out there now and they're all combined and the data is out there and our privacy and everything's out there. So I think step one is having some mechanism to validate the tools and the products that are out there in a neutral party way that doesn't favor one or the other, but validates the technology to make sure it's safe to be used and advertised and marketed to people. That's step one. And then step two, then, is creating some rules around both data governance as well as rules around where and when things can be used. And then what are the boundaries and what are the pros and cons? And then educating the public around this. And so this is a massive effort, just even for healthcare alone, this would be a massive effort by many countries put together to start this process of funding the research and then funding the marketing, funding the education, and then ensuring that even the most basic person in society can use it and view it in a way that makes sense for them. And so this is a massive challenge. There's no easy answer, but we have to start somewhere. And if we don't start today, we'll be even further behind the eight ball than we already are.
- [07:59]
A
Well, Malik, I really appreciate the conversation today. It's some very great insights. But before I let you go, I just want to ask, do you have any final thoughts for us today?
- [08:07]
B
Oh, thank you. This has been an honor and pleasure to be on this podcast. I think the final thought is that AI is a huge challenge and an opportunity that we just have to approach it the right way in collaboration with others to take advantage of the opportunity and mitigate the challenges and the potential negative effects of it.
- [08:26]
A
Thank you again for joining us today on the Becker's Healthcare podcast. Greatly appreciated. You have a lovely rest of your day. You, too.
- [08:31]
B
Thanks for having me.