Risk Never Sleeps Podcast – Episode #167

Agentic AI in Action: Reaching Patients and Improving Outcomes
Guest: Kali Ihde, Director of Northwestern Medicine's Ventures and Innovation
Host: Ed Gaudet
Date: December 17, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, Ed Gaudet interviews Kali Ihde live from the AIMed25 conference in San Diego. The conversation dives deep into how Northwestern Medicine is leveraging agentic AI to elevate patient outreach, improve outcomes, and ensure responsible innovation within healthcare. Kali shares candid insights on AI literacy, practical deployment of AI agents to reach underserved populations, risk-taking in healthcare technology, and the challenges of separating hype from meaningful impact.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Experiences from the AIMed25 Conference

• Emphasis on Clinician Leadership: Kali praises the event’s physician- and clinician-led discussions, noting the refreshing focus on real-world questions and safety guardrails (01:01).
• "Cutting Through the Hype": Kali values the candid peer conversations focused on practical implementation over AI buzz (01:15).

Evaluating and Implementing New AI Technologies

• Vetting Solutions: Kali explains the importance of moving past sales pitches and creating a "safe space" for small-scale pilots to assess true value and workflow integration (01:41).
  • Quote (Kali, 01:41):
    "It really reinforces our structure of giving ourselves a safe space to try something on a small scale, to vet it and really understand what is real."
• Involvement Across Stakeholders: Embedding both clinician and administrative expertise ensures tools are meaningful and not just headline-grabbing (01:50).

Growing AI Literacy and Acceptance

• Shift from Skepticism to Curiosity: There’s growing understanding and readiness among clinicians to engage with AI tools (02:34).
  • Quote (Kali, 03:20):
    "You're starting to get more comfortable with it, understand limitations and considerations... they're much better able to ask questions, to be open to it, to not have... a knee jerk reaction of 'no, this is way too complicated.'"

What is "Agentic AI"?

• Defining Agentic AI: Kali clarifies that, while definitions vary, agentic AI at Northwestern Medicine describes systems that operate autonomously beyond "human in the loop" models (03:34).
• Pragmatic Pilots: Focusing on lower-risk, high-opportunity projects, such as outreach for annual wellness and colorectal screenings (03:50).

Transformative Use Case: AI-Powered Patient Outreach

• Automating Wellness Calls:
  • AI agents now make outbound calls to schedule appointments for preventive care, doing the work of 22 hours in just 30 minutes (04:10).
  • Approximately 10% of contacted patients schedule on the spot—a significant improvement over previous efforts (04:18).
• Unanticipated Positive Outcomes:
  • AI agent conversations have surfaced suicidal ideation and elder abuse, leading to timely intervention by connecting patients to resources (04:32).
  • Quote (Kali, 04:32):
    "We've found suicidal ideation and been able to transfer them to social workers... risks of elder abuse... So it's also a really great way to just give our patients a touch point and identify areas where maybe things are going unseen."

Cross-Department Collaboration

• Marketing's Role:
  • Involvement is crucial but so far limited to small pilot groups to thoroughly vet the tech before broader campaigns (05:50).

Personal Reflections & Career Advice

What Kali Would Tell Her 20-Year-Old Self

• Education:
  • Consider clinical education to better understand patient care and the biology of the human body (06:26).
  • Quote (Kali, 06:26):
    "From a career perspective... I'd probably get a degree in a clinical area of study."
• Personal Health:
  • Take care of your body—advice that resonates more with experience (07:10).

Meaningful Risks in Her Career

• Early Tech Choices:
  • Taking a job at Epic, when it was a small company, proved to be Kali’s most impactful career risk (07:27).
  • Quote (Kali, 08:03):
    "Took a chance on that position, and it has set my career and in many ways my life up in ways I couldn't have even fathomed."
• Influence of Early Healthcare Tech Training:
  • Exposure to real physician workflows at a young age built expertise and passion for healthcare innovation (08:40).

Fun Fact: Northwestern Medicine’s Scope

• Beyond Chicago:
  • Northwestern Medicine has 10 hospitals, 200 clinics in Chicago, and partnerships in Naples, Florida and London (09:55).
  • Quote (Kali, 10:20):
    "A lot of people don't know where all we are hoping to make a difference and change in the world."

Practical Advice: Evaluating AI Innovations

Putting Structure Around Evaluation

• Go Beyond Governance:
  • Use structured, consistent evaluation: identify the true problem, assess technology fit, define and measure success from the start (10:59).
  • Quote (Kali, 10:59):
    "Every single solution: what problem is it solving?... Define and measure what success looks like."
• Avoid ‘Pilot Purgatory’:
  • Set outcomes in advance to know whether a pilot succeeded; avoid ambiguous goals (11:50).

The ROI Question

• Does ROI Need to Be Seven Figures?
  • Kali emphasizes right-sizing expectations to the investment and measuring ROI in quantifiable terms, especially with AI (12:18, 12:39).
  • Quote (Kali, 12:39):
    "The promise of AI is that it can do things faster, better, more precisely. That should be measurable."

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Real-World Innovation:

  • "We're leveraging AI agents to make those phone calls on our behalf. And they're doing 22 hours of work in 30 minutes... We've found suicidal ideation... risks of elder abuse... So it's also a really great way to just give our patients a touch point and identify areas where maybe things are going unseen." – Kali Ihde, (04:10–04:32)

• On Cutting Through AI Hype:

  • "We're looking to talk to anybody who’s trying to dig through the hype, get to the real world application and make a meaningful difference in the halls of our hospitals, into the rooms of our clinics, into the lives of our communities and our workforce every day." – Kali Ihde, (13:20)

Important Timestamps

• 01:00 – Conference impressions and clinician-led innovation
• 03:34 – Agentic AI defined, real use cases
• 04:10–04:45 – Patient outreach, wellness, and unanticipated human impact
• 06:26 – Career advice for young professionals
• 07:27 – The risk and rewards of joining Epic early
• 09:55 – Northwestern Medicine’s broad reach
• 10:59 – Building structure into tech/AI vetting
• 12:39 – Quantifying AI ROI

Closing Thoughts

Kali invites listeners to connect via LinkedIn or visit innovation.nm.org to learn more. Her parting message champions working with others committed to moving beyond the hype and making meaningful, measurable impacts in healthcare (13:01).

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