Peter Weir, MD, our host for this episode, is a primary care physician and currently serves as the Chief Population Health Officer for University of Utah Health. Weir’s guest is Dr. Ken Kawamoto, known nationally in the fields of clinical informatics, interoperability, and AI-enabled healthcare and leader of U of U Health’s Innovation Lab. He is an MD/PhD and has a remarkable ability to blend what providers and staff need to be successful and efficient while caring for patients.

Artificial intelligence is changing health care and academic medicine at a remarkable pace. For years, AI has supported predictive analytics, imaging, and the extraction of data from clinical notes. Today, large language models and related technologies are accelerating that progress, helping us solve complex problems faster and more effectively. Importantly, these tools are designed to support human expertise—not replace it.

In the podcast we cover a variety of topics, including what we mean when we use terms like AI and large language models (LLMs), what this technology actually is, why we’re seeing a tipping point in adoption and effectiveness, how AI can be integrated into the EMR, its role in clinical decision-making, the ongoing challenges with interoperability—and how AI may help improve the flow of data between health systems—as well as both the excitement and the legitimate concerns surrounding this technology.

Listeners will learn more about HIPAA compliance and safety with AI tools and how it can increase patient face-time by automating administrative tasks like note-taking, coding, and drafting documentation. AI innovations can ironically improve and restore the human side of caring for patients.