When some visionaries look at the potential of artificial intelligence in healthcare, they point to improved processes. But the author of Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again sees liberated people.    

“Deep Medicine took three years of research,” said Eric Topol, MD, who is scheduled to give the closing keynote at the CHIME Fall CIO Forum in Phoenix on Nov. 6. “When I went into it, it as with the idea that we have a new way to work with data, massive data, that exceeds human capabilities. The eureka moment was the realization that everyone is talking about improving accuracy, improving speed, potentially lowering costs, improving workflow and productivity. It hit me that that’s all nice but what we really need is to improve the human side of healthcare, the care.”

Topol has an uncanny ability to identify the next wave in healthcare innovation. Author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine and The Patient Will See You Now, he had been forecasting the direction of digital healthcare and describing a future where healthcare is transformed. He sees technologies like smartphones giving patients more autonomy and AI freeing physicians by pushing the technology to the background through opportunities like “getting rid of keyboards, the common enemy of patients and doctors.” Making the environment less about the technology “frees up doctors to do what they want to do, which is connecting to patients. AI can get us the gift of time.”

Topol is a cardiologist, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, executive vice president of Scripps Research and professor of Molecular Medicine. He is one of the leading innovators in medicine today, specializing in the use of artificial intelligence, “deep” data and smart technology in the practice of individualized medicine.

This will be Topol’s second appearance as a keynote speaker at a CHIME fall forum. In 2012, he addressed members in Indian Wells, Calif.

This year’s forum will take place Nov. 3-6 in Phoenix. To learn more about the full program, go here. Registration is open and available here.

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