The Data Dilemma: AI, Governance, and Interoperability in Healthcare with a CIO Veteran

In this episode of This Week In Health Tech, Vik Patel welcomes Mark Farrow, a CIO veteran with experience of leading IT teams at large academic health systems and also community health system. This episode is very in-depth real world discussions about data challenges, AI governance and interoperability in healthcare.
Mark starts out sharing his background and how he got started working in a hospital. Vik and Mark talk about data challenge in health systems, starting with challenge of making sense of the big data. Mark makes a comment that health systems are “data rich and knowledge poor”, which really describes the big data current situation in most health systems. 
Vik and Mark then share that not everyone maybe aware that faxing is still very much active in health system communication. That shows that we still have much to do for interoperability. There are still many point to point interfaces and in this case using Faxing. 
Vik asks the question to Mark if EHRs have a role to play in how the data is being collected but the usage of data and sharing is still a challenge. 
Mark and Vik then discuss strategy of AI, and how quality of life should drive the decision making. Mark thinks AI should really help unlock the power of data that is in the EHRs and all the clinical applications. Mark also provides real-world examples of how AI can help unlock data for clinical and operational decision making and help improve patient outcomes. 
Both then dive into the risks related to adopting AI solutions and how to overcome some of these challenges using governance and appropriate resources like data scientists on the team. 

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Vik Patel – LinkedIn
Tido Inc. – Website
Tido Inc. – LinkedIn