Editor’s Note: This is the third in our series, Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer in Healthcare. To read the first, an interview with Dennis Chornenky at UC Davis Health, Click here. For the second reading, with Dr. Karandeep Singh at UC San Diego Health, Click here.
As AI shifts away from healthcare — more vendors introducing AI into their systems, and more departments in hospitals and health systems standing their own AI projects — someone has to be in charge of it all, and help ensure responsible use of the technology toward… Produce reliable results.
For an ever-increasing number of healthcare provider organizations, someone is the chief AI officer. This is an executive, usually a doctor, who is given complete authority at the C-suite level to oversee all things AI.
Alda Mizaku was hired as chief data and artificial intelligence officer at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., last summer. Health care news He sat down with her for a wide-ranging interview about being an AI officer.
Today, in part one of this two-part interview, she’s going to talk about how she approached Children’s National Hospital to become a chief AI officer and what they were looking for, what in her background made her a good fit, and skills for anyone looking to be a chief AI officer. It must have an artificial intelligence part of its role.
Q: How did Children’s National Hospital approach you to become its chief AI officer? What were they looking for and who would they report to?
A. National Kids was looking for a leader to come in and lead their data analytics and artificial intelligence capabilities. This is something they have been looking for, for some time. With the new CEO joining the organization came a lot of these plans.
When we were having some of those initial conversations, it was with a clear vision of wanting to bring in AI, bring industry-leading individual capabilities from data analytics and AI, and be able to combine that with operations in order to improve the patient experience, improve operational efficiency and bring Some of these are more advanced abilities as part of daily work.
They were interested in bringing in someone with a strong background in both healthcare AI capabilities and filling the gap with some clinical needs. So, someone who can talk about technical capabilities and understand the clinical needs and be able to bring the technology to be able to meet those needs. My role is Chief Data and AI Officer, reporting to the CIO.
We have alignment, ensuring alignment with the overall strategic goals and technical direction of the organization.
Q: This is your first posting as an AI officer. What in your background makes you a good fit to be a Chief AI Officer? And what skills should anyone looking to become an AI big boss have?
A. A little about my background. I started out as a biomechanical engineer. Focused on computer-aided diagnosis. I’ve built predictive models in the colorectal cancer space, and I’ve developed a new way to be able to do a three-year prognosis there.
From there, I moved on to doing some work in high-throughput genotyping to build software that solved specific problems with the high-throughput genotyping laboratory, to create efficiencies there. From there, I spent 11 years in healthcare, all in data analytics in different roles and different departments. When I look at my background, I would say it combines extensive knowledge of healthcare technology and healthcare with a strong foundation in data science and machine learning.
I have also been involved in several AI-driven projects focused on improving patient outcomes and streamlining processes in healthcare settings. I would say to anyone aspiring to be a Chief AI Officer, make sure they have a deep understanding of AI techniques and understand the clinical operational aspect of the area they are working on.
They also need strong leadership abilities, effective communication skills, and the ability to speak with a variety of stakeholders. This is one of the things that is very common in my role is data and AI can be applied to any department or any department. We need to be able to switch that hat frequently from talking to someone in HR, someone in finance, someone in clinical.
Another thing that would be, particularly in this area, is just a passion for patient-centered care, to be able to drive meaningful change in effectiveness there.
Q: Please describe the AI part of your job at Children’s National Hospital. In broad terms, what is expected of you? More specifically, what is a typical day like for you?
A. At a high level in broad terms, my role involves developing and implementing AI strategies, ensuring that this aligns with the mission and strategic direction of the organisation, all of which align with our mission to be able to provide exceptional care to those children who are interested in our care.
Some of the things this involves is identifying potential applications that may exist in the market that we need to implement to create efficiencies in our environment. It may mean supervising specific projects. If we don’t see something in the market, can we develop that within our team and be able to create that efficiencies in our space?
It looks at the ethical considerations of deploying artificial intelligence, and whether we can do so in a responsible and effective way. A typical day for me involves a lot of collaboration, a lot of meetings, with clinical teams and technical teams. I must understand and meet their needs on a daily basis.
I meet with data scientists and review projects and I get to represent a lot of their findings and they have opportunities through the executive team to help make decisions and drive some of the data-driven decision making in our organization.
To watch a video of this interview containing additional content not included in this story, Click here.
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