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Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Informatics, AI Governance, and Cybersecurity with Joseph Izzo, MD
00:13:25
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- [00:02]
A
Every year, Becker's annual meeting brings healthcare leaders together to unpack the most pressing issues facing the industry. And every year, those conversations shift in profound and unexpected ways. This April, more than 3,500 healthcare executives will return to Chicago for Becker's 16th annual meeting. 795 elite speakers will offer new lessons, new case studies, and predictions about what comes next. Join us April 13th through the 16th. For the agenda and event details, visit Beckershospitalview.com and click on the Events tab in the upper right.
- [00:38]
B
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Healthcare Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by Dr. Joseph Izzo. And Dr. Izzo is the Chief Medical Information Officer at the San Joaquin General Hospital. He's also a Rutgers graduate. Robert Wood Johnson Medical school emergency physician. Dr. Izzo, can you take a moment and introduce yourself? Thank you.
- [01:03]
C
Yeah, of course. And it's great to be here, Scott. Thank you for having me. Like you mentioned, I'm a practicing emergency physician. I'm CMO for San Joaquin, that's a public teaching hospital and level two trauma center out in Central Valley, California. And in my role, I lead our informatics and clinical analytics teams, overseeing innovation and AI governance strategy and serve as a liaison between our frontline clinicians and, and our technology and IT teams. And actually, as you mentioned, my background is actually in computer science before medicine, which really shapes how I work at that intersection of clinical care and technology. But of course, I am speaking from my own experiences and observations and I appreciate you having me here.
- [01:41]
B
Well, thank you so much for joining us. And talk about that, that intersection of being a physician, an emergency physician, computer science background, and talk about what trends you're watching at the intersection of these two things, which seems to be at the middle of everything. Talk a little bit about that computer science and medical background.
- [02:01]
C
Yeah, I think like most people in my position, there's been a major wave of innovation. We've certainly seen it over the last few years with large language models and that's translated to ambient AI and scribes, clinical search or information retrieval tools, and that's really exploded among physician and clinician use. But it's interesting that I don't know that anything else has quite reached that level yet. And so I'm constantly managing trends for any promising areas. And I actually saw some at the recent Beckers IT in October where there was some progress in clinical summarization, agent and communication tools, scheduling, referral assistance tools embedded within the EMR and even some operational applications. And I'm especially looking for how that applies to smaller community hospital settings like ours. At the same time though, and maybe this ties a little bit into a cyber security background. I'm equally focused on where in innovation may be outpacing our safeguards. We are constantly looking to make sure our tools are safe, responsibly implemented and secure and particularly cautious about those solutions that are unvetted and maybe actually marketed directly to clinicians and in some ways skirt governance because those actually drastically expand the threat surface. And we also call that shadow AI or it. And that's something we need to be very cautious and aware of. And I think, I think the two of that reflects your question and probably a trend in itself how the CMIO role and folks in my position have found ourselves changing in the recent years. Traditionally we were the clinicians that were good at computer systems, good at the electronic medical record, but now we're wearing a lot of hats. By necessity that includes governance, cybersecurity, like I mentioned, regulatory awareness. And it seems like it's very important now to stay one step ahead and really deepen our understanding of each of those required aspects as this technology explosion continues.
- [03:54]
B
Thank you and take a moment on. Let me ask you a couple different questions. You mentioned a couple things that are really interesting. This concern about technology versus guardrails, innovation versus governance, cybersecurity concerns and so forth. Let me start on one side of that, which is what technology and your point is so well taken on a small mid sized hospital versus a $30 billion system and you have a chance to work across both, quite frankly. What technology are you excited about at a smaller general hospital that just excites you, that may be useful to the system to providing patient care to physicians, nurses. What technology excites you?
- [04:36]
C
I want to say that this way of innovation we're talking about is really exciting because how quickly clinicians are adopting to the technology, wanting to get involved, bringing new tools to the table. But I do want to mention that that bread and butter of informatics is also really energizing because we haven't solved everything like we've been talking about. And even in 2026 there's something still satisfying actually about improving workflows and usabilities in such a way that everyday clinical practice is easier and safer for those frontline teams. And it's still to this day where even a small workflow change or small introduction of innovative solutions can actually go a long way. And that is actually a large part of what drives me.
- [05:23]
B
And talk about informatics because you know, so many of us that are not CMIOS or not in the informatics space. Give me a definition of informatics. That's my dumb question for the day, but I think many of us would like to know. Give us a definition from a, from a computer science person. Somebody's got your background. What does informatics mean? Exactly? Just give me that, if you don't mind.
- [05:47]
C
You know, I fair, I really do think simple is better. Those folks who sit at the intersection between clinical front lines and technology, innovation, digital transformation and you know, we're not purely it, we're not purely clinical. We share that background and that really allows us to serve as liaisons and translate between the two, which in traditionally, not anymore, things are changing. Traditionally those two groups have been siloed and have had different outcomes and goals, but I actually see them overlapping. That's where folks like us, I think, really shine.
- [06:20]
B
So, Doctor, here, here's the question. You had also mentioned concerns about cybersecurity. And you've got some systems running, literally thousands of different modules, software programs, stuff like that, many trying to cut down. Where do you see the biggest risk from a cyber security standpoint? And where does that, where does that keep you up at night?
- [06:39]
C
One of my concerns is, is actually the non malicious actor, if you will, the person who's trying to maybe make a change to improve their workflow, see more patients. It is actually attracted to those tools that are marketed directly to clinicians to solve those burdens that introduce, like I mentioned, a larger threat surface, I believe, and it causes scenarios where we may not actually have control of where our data is going and what it's being used for, whether it's going to third parties. And I've heard from talking to other colleagues in the space, some of the conversations I had in October, that there isn't a really great answer for that. That isn't making sure that you bring these folks to the table. Explain the importance of governance, explain the importance of cybersecurity and their responsibility to the patients and their data.
- [07:26]
B
Talk for a second. Dr. Izzo, about this year, 2026. What are you most focused and excited about?
- [07:33]
C
Sure. You know, from an organizational standpoint, there's two things that I think really stand out and actually reflect a conversation I had with some of your team on a previous podcast. And that's towards innovation and AI governance and also towards data driven care. I mentioned we had a strong foundation that we built with clear policy, a governance framework, but over the last year it's grown very iteratively into a robust multidisciplinary structure. I mentioned that more and more clinical staff are interested in getting part of the discussion. And the group is represented by a number of clinical leaders, frontline staff, nursing it, pharmacy operations and security, among others at that table. And the discussion, as I mentioned, is very lively. There's a very thoughtful, responsible process now for evaluating existing tools and even looking at new ones and particularly looking at the tools through the lens of what's really important. Patient safety, potential bias, responsible deployment. And I'm really impressed that we're not above revisiting. We're very comfortable revisiting decisions that we've made in the past as technology in the landscape evolves. And then when I mentioned data driven care in the past, I mentioned unifying disparate data sources and a few very strong use cases. And that's truly expanded over the last year, maybe year and a half, into population, health and quality initiatives across the system. And that's including areas like maternal health, early recovery, after surgery. And both of these, I think, are kind of tied back to your question on informatics and where the landscape is changing in that this is a really great example of what's possible when you have clinical leadership, IT informatics truly working together to a shared goal and not staying in silos.
- [09:16]
B
Thank you. Take a moment, Doctor. You've got this great career at the intersection of healthcare technology. You're a leader, cmio. You're also a practicing emergency physician. Talk a bit about what advice do you give to emerging leaders about staying energized, about doing several things, about staying excited about what they do. What advice do you give to emerging leaders and physicians?
- [09:43]
C
Yeah. With everything that we just talked about, I think that most important lesson is leadership is going to be continuous evolution. And it's very important, at least for me, that I stay curious and keep learning. And that could be something new. It could also be deepening understanding of something within our domains. Because no matter what, that pace of change is pretty much astronomical now, if you will. But what I've learned also is that we don't really have to do this alone. Through conversations like these conferences, professional communities, some discussions among peers, you know, it's. It's incredibly valued, actually. Just listen and share best practices because everyone, I think, is in the same boat for this. And to take actually a step further, stepping, you know, moving outside of your comfort zone has been significant for me. I feel like I've gained so much from actually listening to frontline teams, partnering with people in other departments, even in areas traditionally where informatics may not have been involved because, you know, we're going past that point of silos. But some of the best progress I've seen actually comes from such interdisciplinary and maybe even cross system collaborations.
- [10:47]
B
And take a second on that. That pace of change. It seems like, you know, that the pace of change could be so scary for so many people. That pace of change. I mean, in some ways it leads you back to just do your job because it's so scary out there with so many things that are changing. How do you deal with that pace of change?
- [11:06]
C
You know, it's not easy. I will say, and I think I said it before, that the barrier for entry is much lower than it's been with many of these tools to help guide, you know, some of our students and residents talk about how they augment their studying with some of the available tools. And I really think that that drives the point home, is that if you're moving a little bit outside of your comfort zone and embracing some of this technology, it may actually in some ways paradoxically soften the overwhelming feelings behind tackling that new learning or this new tech, that new pace of change.
- [11:41]
B
Thank you. It does seem really challenging for so many. And then it seems like, I mean, you do this mix of things. You're in a leadership role. You do emergency physician shifts. Both those are stressful. But it might seem sometimes, if you could focus your mind on just doing emergency care, that it must be nice sometimes to have those shifts. We're not thinking about all the leadership technology and changes and things that are going on, or how do you. How do you balance that?
- [12:06]
C
Actually, in some ways, I would say that this helps augment the shifts in some way because it means I understand the system behind the word I'm practicing. And particularly since technology, you know, the EMR has effectively become one of our vital tools in the care of a patient and being able to understand some of the nuances of that and how. How that really integrates into our practice, actually, I think sometimes makes those shifts a little bit more grounded, to be honest.
- [12:34]
B
No, no, I love that. And for those people that talk about, oh, my God, the EMR is too complicated. We have to get rid of it. We're never getting away from the emr. We need it. So we better find a way to work with it. I mean, that discussion is 20 years old already. But no, you're. I mean, we. The EMR is so critical. I mean, to a patient perspective. You get someplace, they've already got a lot of your records, and they're not having to. There's less and less having to piece everything together because they've already got it so critical as you go sites across places across states, everything. No, I couldn't agree with you more. Thank you so much. Dr. Izzo, is there anything that I didn't ask you that I should have asked you?
- [13:07]
C
No, no. I think this has been a wonderful discussion and I really appreciate it as always having me.
- [13:13]
B
Well, I appreciate you taking the time in the, in the, in the middle of the day to do this. Just a great pleasure to visit. Dr. Is an amazing career. Thank you so much for joining us.