Health Data Ethics

I'm taking a brief break as work and life have both ramped up, leaving me in need of a few weeks to prep some great content for you. I'll be back later in the summer!

This week's Health Data Ethics podcast continues our series on the Joint Commission and CHAI guidance on the responsible use of health AI. In this episode we're digging into privacy and transparency. The guidance itself is reasonable. What I spent most of the episode on is how you actually implement it, because that's where things get interesting. Adding AI language to the Notice of Privacy Practi...

Getting an AI policy approved in a large health system is a different skill than writing one. In part two of my AI policy series on the Health Data Ethics Podcast, I share what months of drafting, socializing, and navigating formal approval at Cleveland Clinic actually looked like: the champions you need, the scope battles you'll face, and why the approval process is won or lost long before the po...

Writing an AI policy sounds straightforward — until it becomes the place where everyone in your organization hangs all their hopes and dreams for AI governance. In this episode of the Health Data Ethics Podcast, I walk through the first item on the Joint Commission and Coalition for Health AI's responsible use guidance: establishing an AI policy as your governance foundation. I share what we learn...

Part two of my breakdown of the White House National AI Policy Framework — what it says about workforce, what it leaves out, and what it would take to become law. The workforce section has good instincts but no mandates, no funding, no timelines. In healthcare, this can create a patient safety problem, if our health systems don't fill this gap thoughtfully. The legislative road is crowded and unce...

This week's episode of the Health Data Ethics Show: The White House just released a four-page legislative framework asking Congress to pass national AI policy this year. Not a law. A wish list, but one that tells us a lot about where federal AI policy is heading. In this episode I break down what it means for healthcare governance: the preemption debate, FDA as the designated health AI gatekeeper,...

In this week's episode of the Health Data Ethics Show, I dig into a new Nature Medicine paper that stress-tested ChatGPT Health across 960 clinical vignettes. ChatGPT Health performs remarkably well in the middle of the acuity spectrum, correctly triaging semi-urgent and urgent cases at rates that rival clinical judgment. At the extremes, though, it struggles — undertriaging more than half of true...

Last week, Anthropic published new research on the labor market impacts of AI. In this week's episode, I break down what the paper actually says, why the gap between theoretical and observed AI exposure matters, and which workers and which sectors are most impacted. Those workers, and the people reading these articles, are also your patients. They're walking into your hospital carrying headlines,...

In this episode, I invite special spousal guest Brad Owens to help explore a landmark federal court case involving Workday’s AI-powered hiring tools and potential implications for AI governance in employment and healthcare. Join us as we dissect the legal, ethical, and technological facets of AI decision-making and bias mitigation. EEOC Four-Fifths Rule - https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/questio...

In this week's Health Data Ethics podcast, I dissected a 2023 JAMA study on using a voice-based AI tool to coach patients through insulin titration in type 2 diabetes. Big thanks up front to Aida McCracken who listened to me work through this one! The results were encouraging—patients hit optimal dosing in 15 days vs. 56+ for standard care. But governance questions kept nagging me. → Self-titratio...

This week, I recorded a new episode of Health Data Ethics about FDA and EMA’s joint principles on AI in drug development. I used ChatGPT to help generate a draft. I loved it, until I started fact checking. It cited a section of a review paper that didn’t exist. Referenced a tool that never appeared in the text. When I called it on its hallucinations, it gave me fake quotes with fake page numbers....

Just had a brilliant conversation with Sahar Hashmi MD-PhD—one of my favorite people to talk AI-in-healthcare with. Dr. Hashmi made a powerful case for customized AI workshops tailored to clinical teams. We also unpacked: - What healthcare can learn from other industries - Why assessing AI readiness is foundational - The value of an AI Center of Excellence as a coordination engine - A Flexner mome...

I recently spent time unpacking the FDA’s clinical decision support software guidance and what it really means for healthcare organizations deploying AI. At the center of the guidance is a simple question: when does software cross the line into being regulated as a medical device? The FDA lays out specific criteria that hinge on how recommendations are generated, how they are presented, and whethe...

In this week’s Health Data Ethics episode, I break down four proposed bills in Ohio that aim to regulate artificial intelligence. These aren’t laws (yet). But they are early indicators of where state-level AI governance is headed, and the healthcare sector is definitely in scope. We also zoom out to look at where these proposals fit within wider state and federal activity on AI.

In this week's podcast episode, I had the chance to chat with Nicholas Woo of AlignAI about AI governance by design at multiple stages of AI development and implementation. We also talked about how easily great technological solutions can get stalled when they don’t fit into existing workflows or when there’s no clear operational champion. If you're thinking about AI governance, this episode is fo...

In this week’s episode of the Health Data Ethics Podcast, I dive into a recent JAMA Network Open study that looked at ambient AI scribes in primary care settings — what worked, what didn’t, and where we still need better evidence. I also tackle what makes a successful scribe deployment, and end by musing about what ROI really means. Is it always dollars? Or is reducing burnout enough?

We’re officially in a new era: the Joint Commission has released guidance on the responsible use of AI in healthcare, developed alongside the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI). The guidance lays out a clear framework for responsible healthcare AI that includes: 🏛️ Strong governance structures 🔐 Patient privacy & data security safeguards 📊 Ongoing quality monitoring 🧑‍🏫 Workforce education &am...

This week on the Health Data Ethics Podcast, I sat down with Doug Meil to talk about his new book, "The Rise and Fall of Explorys and IBM Watson Health." What started as a discussion about a decade-long journey in health tech turned into a reflection on ambition, acquisition, and the hard-earned lessons of analytics. Doug talked about missed opportunities, broke down the reasons why they were miss...

Just had a fantastic conversation with Kylen Bailey, Executive Director of Growth at Clarium, on the latest episode of the Health Data Ethics Podcast. We dug into a topic that doesn’t get nearly enough attention in the AI-in-healthcare hype cycle: the supply chain. More specifically, how AI can help us connect the dots across healthcare systems in a way that’s actually usable and secure. What real...

In this week's episode of the Health Data Ethics Podcast, I dig into something that doesn’t get enough airtime in healthcare AI conversations: what we can learn from the projects that don’t work. A recent MIT study suggests that up to 95% of AI pilots don’t deliver a measurable return on investment. That statistic may feel discouraging, but it’s also a great jump off point for investigation. What'...

This week on the Health Data Ethics Podcast, I unpack the recent announcement from CMS about the Health Technology Ecosystem and what it could mean for patient access to data. I dive into: Why CMS is using a pledge instead of regulation The current state of HIEs and where TEFCA fits in The real risk: that this pledge ends up helping flagship systems while leaving rural hospitals and safety-net cli...

On this week’s Health Data Ethics Podcast, I break down the AI Action Plan released in July 2025—a big move in how the U.S. is approaching artificial intelligence policy. I walk through the plan’s three central pillars and what they could mean for the future of AI in healthcare and beyond. We talk about: 🏛️ Executive orders that now mandate ideological neutrality in federal AI systems 🧱 The massi...

In this week’s episode of the Health Data Ethics Podcast, I dove into one of my favorite recent papers: "Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt When Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing." I loved reading about how the researchers explored the mental trade-offs when using ChatGPT for writing tasks. In the episode, I unpack: The study’s experimental design and takeaways What this c...

I sat down with John Valutkevich from Drummond for the latest Health Data Ethics Podcast to talk through their new report on AI adoption in healthcare. We dug into the gap between curiosity and actual deployment. Everyone wants AI, but fewer are ready for the governance, risk management, and infrastructure it really takes to do it well. John shared insights on what’s working, where trust and expla...

This episode of the Health Data Ethics podcast unpacks a strange behavior observed in Claude during Anthropic’s internal testing — specifically a simulated blackmail attempt — and why that kind of behavior matters for healthcare. What stood out most wasn’t the incident itself, but the way Anthropic handled it: they shared the whole incident, explained their tiered safety system, and outlined the s...