Alliance Physical Therapy Partners: Alliance Physical Therapy Partners in Agile Virtual Physical Therapy. Probably present Agile&Me, a Physical Therapy Leadership podcast devised to help emerging and experienced therapy leaders learn more about various topics relevant to outpatient therapy services.
Richard Leaver: Okay, welcome back to Agile&Me pt.
Therapy Leadership podcast series. I am extremely excited to welcome Marla Ranieri. Marla. I’ve known for a number of years now, and certainly a thought leader within our outpatient therapy profession within the us and today we’re exploring the application of AI and physical therapy. So welcome Marla.
Marla Ranieri: Thank you. I appreciate such a pleasure to be on the show today.
Richard Leaver: So before we dive into the topic, which I’m really quite excited about, ’cause this is an area that I’m completely clueless in, I always ask the guests to introduce themselves a little bit about your background, your current role and, and perhaps how you became interested in AI.
Marla Ranieri: Great. Well, I am a PT by trade, so I’ve been a physical therapist for over 20 years now, and I really started off my career as a hospital for special surgery and loved, loved being there. When I went into an outpatient private practice, I was working inside gymnastics gyms. Helping implement models of direct treatment inside different supporting facilities and injury prevention programs.
With that is where I started to fall in love with technology because I realized that I couldn’t be using home exercise programs while I was in the gyms, which back in the day, we didn’t have it online or electronic. So I had created a home exercise program. A guy in India, a mobile app, and that was my first experience with technology, finding problems and fixing them with ways that I thought would be the best for the patient.
The other big problem I ended up seeing was scheduling those athletes and gymnasts. They were just in the gym and they didn’t wanna call to schedule. So I ended up creating a online scheduling company Better pt, better Healthcare, and again, really started bridging my,. Gap of technology and physical therapy just because of the need for the patient experience and my passion for having a better patient experience.
That brings me to how I got involved with AI and really interested in it. As technology gets better and better, I ended up going to a large enterprise group, Ivy Rehab, to be the VP of clinical excellence and innovation. We just started to explore all different ways to help the patient and to advance the experience of physical therapy.
Obviously, it’s so important on that hands-on experience, but how they’re getting there, how they’re interacting with your company and your clinic. We started to look at third party. AI chat bots. I used it every day in my life. Hopefully you guys are starting to use it in yours. The next wave of technology was ai, and so that’s how I became very passionate about it, and currently now work for Prompt Therapy Solutions, which is a.
MR patient engagement company that really incorporates AI. I switched there because I realized the need to have all of that AI embedded in your infrastructure in your EMR and wanted to incorporate all into one place. So excited to be able to do that.
Richard Leaver: What I’ve really loved about your journey and where you are positioned is the application of technology, not just as a theoretical academic exercise, but as a definite practical tool A, and how it can truly be used on a day-to-day basis by clinicians and support services.
A lot of the times we talk about the application of technology, it becomes very much a theoretical conversation, doesn’t it?
Marla Ranieri: And I think people sometimes shy away from the application of technology. PT is really a very hands-on manual human interaction, so technology gets a little bit fearful in that space.
But like I said, my usage of technology always came from my passion of the patient and the experience and how we could make it better.
Richard Leaver: Now when we talk about ai, it’s really a to, for many of us, it’s a real leap forwards. You know, many clinicians are still printing out heaven forbid exercise programs, which blows my mind, but they still are.
This concept of talking about this subject of AI is really interesting to me looking. 5, 10, 15 years ahead. There is definitely a lot currently being done now, before we talk about how it’s being currently used, I would love to know what we mean when we use the term ai, specifically referring it to the context of, of healthcare and physical therapy.
Marla Ranieri: Yeah, absolutely. And AI is a buzzword right now, so you can hear it, but you might not exactly know what’s referring to. And even when people use it, there’s so many different versions of AI that I think it gets complicated and people get confused at what AI is. What is this artificial intelligence? What is it and how can it help me and how can I use it or should I fear it?
The way I can explain AI is that it really comes in four different forms, so you have your natural language processing and that’s. AI’s ability to understand and process human language. This is what most people are familiar with, chat, GPT and some of the other forms where you actually can ask a question and AI is acting like a human and answering you.
It’s taking all different information and then giving you. The best answer that it formulates. We find people less likely to search Google now and more of them to actually ask Chat GPT or ask ai, so that that’s one form of AI. The other form is computer vision, where AI can interpret images or videos and has the potential to apply that into movement.
And this, a great example of that is exercise programs, right? So where the patient may have different pieces on their body, you know, you’ve seen where they do exercises with the video and it’s actually showing how they’re moving and it’s interpreting the movement. The next kind of AI is machine learning, and that’s actually where they’re able to take all these different algorithms and data and look for patterns, then recognize those patterns, analyze the data and make predictions.
So when you think about that and how that could be in the healthcare world, is taking all. Past claims or past data about how people treated patients and what could you predict with that data for the future about how that person is gonna heal or how that injury’s gonna go. So that’s one type of AI as well.
Then finally you have your automation and AI assistants, and that’s kind of like your secretaries or your chat bots who are helping to automate and streamline tasks, administrative tasks, and really, again, help make sure that you’re being more efficient and you’re utilizing that quote unquote secretary or assistant.
So those are the four ways I think of AI and break it down, automation. Exist as well. That’s not AI. Uh, automation is, is if X then Y. And that’s a great technique and tool as well. But just so you know, a lot of people do call automation ai and that could be confusing ’cause they are two different things.
Richard Leaver: Yes. I think most people’s experience, including myself of AI is limited to primary natural language processing. As you say, Google’s being put to one side for the likes of chat, GPT or Microsoft Co-Pilot, or I’m sure there’s other ones there as well. And that one of. Four components is profoundly impacting how we search for information and process information and present information, doesn’t it?
The other examples you give or aspects of ai, they’re not theoretical, are they? They are all currently being used to varying degrees. It’s not theoretical, correct.
Marla Ranieri: Correct. Absolutely. They’re being used in varying degrees of healthcare in general and in physical therapy already.
Richard Leaver: You talk about automation, which is interesting.
I assume you are referring to the use of bots. Correct. When we talk about automation, it’s a simple algorithm that it follows. Correct, and that’s not truly AI. Am I correct in saying that?
Marla Ranieri: Yeah, absolutely. For example, you can have a chat bot on your page where you have scripted it. If somebody says this, you respond that if they press this button, this is the next action.
So that’s automation. But AI is where that chat bot is able to understand what you’re saying and actually respond back outside of the algorithm you gave it. It actually has deep learning and can learn from it and respond to it, and then have a conversation.
Richard Leaver: Obviously this is a journey, isn’t it? You always overestimate from a technology perspective what will happen in the short term, say one to two year period, but you always underestimate what will happen in five to 10 year period.
I think this is definitely when we talk about ai, that case, but you know, how is AI currently being used in clinical practice because it certain is, and I I believe that probably it’s almost reaching the point that. One of these four, at least aspects is embedded in our daily life already probably might not even realize.
Marla Ranieri: Yeah, absolutely. And it really is being used in clinical practice, whether you’re using it or not, it is out there and available. The most common way we’re seeing it is instead of writing down your whole evaluation. You can actually be speaking your evaluation and there’s ambient listening that’s listening to what you’re saying.
It’s not dictation where it’s writing down exactly what you say it actually is interpreting everything you’ve said, what the patient’s responding, and then it’ll fill out your evaluation and write it for you mimicking the way you are speaking. But it’s actually formulating sentences through that ambient listening.
So that’s one way that we’re seeing AI happen right now. Prediction Health. Comprehend, help scribe AI. Plenty of services doing that, and that is solving a pain point. Therapists don’t like documenting, so that’s one way that AI is being utilized. AI is also being utilized from the intake side. For example, prompt just released an AI intake where as the patient is filling out their digital intake form, the questions are changing by what the patient is filling out, and it’s asking more specific questions about their goals and their injury, and then it’s taking and processing all that information.
It’s actually. Writing the subjective, the assessment and the goal part of the note. When I say writing, it’s suggesting the written words and you as the therapist can add it at it and make sure that it is what you want to be written down. So those are two very common ways in physical therapy that’s being utilized more recently than before, but really starting to take off.
Richard Leaver: The first part is the ambient listening. There are a number of entities that commercialized it with degrees of success, and I believe that’s helpful. That’s really the first step, isn’t it? Preempting some of the information you’re gonna share later, but the next step then is really kind of video capture, isn’t it?
So I think from a subjective perspective, I think we, we. The technology is embedded or, or can be? Can be, is there to be used and I think doing a reasonable job. But it’s interesting that this will evolve where. Probably within a relatively short period of time, everyone will be using the ambient listening.
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Marla Ranieri: Another great feature that was just released, and I’m sure there’s others looking towards it as well, is that AI insight.
So when you go into a note, and let’s say you’ve seen that patient for four times or five visits already, or maybe you’re a new therapist picking up that patient right on the top of the note, it has insights all about that patient, how they’re doing about their injury, if their pain has changed over the last few visits or not.
Compliance, did you update their subjective over the three visits? Have you changed their home exercise program? So a nice little paragraph right on top to give you a snapshot of what’s been going on with that patient and to remind you to be compliant. So I think that’s another really great way. Again, it should be assisting you and augmenting your services and just making you a better provider.
Richard Leaver: I think one of the most exciting things is the machine learning component. The idea that after a period of time, technology will help you determine the most likely best. Courses of treatment to give optimum outcomes. AI is the first time where there’s the capacity associated machine learning to truly give us more accurate, reliable, and valid guidance for treatment.
So it’s almost as if you have on hand a whole library of information that’s. In the past just being limited to very specific scientific articles, but this opens up a whole new world, doesn’t it?
Marla Ranieri: Absolutely, and that’s really where AI is going. One of the things we’re working on right now, which I find so exciting, is that we know there’s all these clinical practice guidelines out.
There’s all this research out, but it’s hard for us to use that in the moment or to remember every single piece of it. Or to even go look it up. But that machine learning, like you said in the language model, you can feed AI all of those different pieces as well as the data from past patients looking at their demographics and looking at their injury and what.
How they healed and what exercise were done and what worked, right? So that can help assist you and you could say, these are some special tests with this type of a patient you should be ruling out or ruling in, or these are some good treatment suggestions or outcome predictions. How do we use AI to help us predict and guide us?
In our treatment or even look up a clinical practice guideline or suggest right there for us to see it and then be able to utilize, and that’s where it, it’s really exciting about what the future holds.
Richard Leaver: Yes, there’s always challenges with reimbursement and revenue and continued costs seem to increase, but it’s not just the clinical side.
The application of AI can have a profound impact on our care. We can use this to control non-clinical cost or improve. You know, accuracy. Can you tell me a little bit about how the technology is used on that side of the business?
Marla Ranieri: Absolutely. That is one of the impactful areas as well, the nonclinical and administrative piece.
So right now I think we all struggle with patients scheduling, canceling, rescheduling, and. Any of those pieces where as the business part of physical therapy, we’re always trying to keep a close eye on setting some key performance indicators and metrics and following it and making sure we say, call these patients and get them back in.
Well, that’s a lot of manual work. When somebody cancels and we’re trying to figure out who to call, you may make 10 phone calls before you get somebody to answer and the appointments in two hours. Right? So how can we use ai? Technology to assist those pieces, and that’s where it’s impactful and happening right now.
For example, online scheduling, which has been around for a while, but with physical therapy, if you have online scheduling and somebody cancels, AI can now. Look at all the patients, see who has authorization, who I needs a visit that week. ’cause they haven’t hit their plan of care, who generally comes in that date and time and can then ping them and say, there’s a visit available at this date and time.
Would you like to come in? I. Well, now you have AI finding the right patient for that slot and giving them a message that really relates right to them. And that patient can say yes or no, and now have that visit. So AI can be used in that way of scheduling visits, filling slots, and if somebody hasn’t.
Scheduled their full plan of care, reminding them and reaching out to them, letting them know you still don’t have three visits scheduled for next week per your plan of care. That’s where AI becomes really useful in the nonclinical tasks.
Richard Leaver: Yes, that caseload can become a caseload management tool and an extremely effective one because there are.
Simple rules it could follow, and that saves a huge amount of time, as well as obviously it will improve patient outcomes treated to the appropriate plan of care as well. So I think that’s great. But when we talk about the patient experience, it’s from almost the first minute, isn’t it? It can be applied.
The verification can be kind of automation, but I’m sure AI. Has its place there. Authorizations, I would imagine is probably a little bit harder, but I don’t know if the iris application there, but then all the way through to post visit, which is the charging, and then follow up possibly as well of denials.
Yes, I.
Marla Ranieri: Absolutely, and not only follow up denials, but AI could look at all your past claims and predict when claims should be processed and when they should be paid and can alert you. The ones that haven’t been yet, revenue cycle management that our teams are spending a lot of time on is that. 1% or 2% that’s not actually getting processed and paid.
So where can AI also assist in that way and can alert you ahead of time or make sure that you’re on top of that and even predict which ones when, so you can find the ones that are outside that timeline.
Richard Leaver: And then truly the test of whether an AI is, is remarkable or not be, whether if they can get increased rates from UHC, but that’s probably, uh, is to come.
Marla Ranieri: Something quite interesting is that insurance companies are using AI to deny claims for us. They are. Sadly, right? So we need to combat ourselves. Just recently, my company hired the person who created that algorithm from Blue Cross Blue Shield into our company to help us do it On the other end. They’re gonna deny us from ai, how can we be proactive and make sure that we are doing everything we can.
To submit appropriately, don’t, won’t be denied by their AI. So that’s another great example. Like you said. Well, is it gonna help you get paid more? Well, yeah, if you are submitting the right information. ’cause they know it’s gonna be denied you’re fighting ais. But at least we’re using the same tools and able to combat that.
Richard Leaver: I’m equally excited. I’m slightly depressed by that fact, but it’s interesting now whenever there is a new. Technology things can be used in a positive way, or perhaps there are some types, negative implications, either direct, indirect, or those that we didn’t necessarily anticipate. And I’m sure there are concerns when we’re discussing the application of AI in healthcare.
What are some of those concerns that we know of? I’m sure as it evolves there’s probably going to be changing concerns and different concerns, but what are the concerns at the moment?
Marla Ranieri: You’re right, you have to be aware of the concerns as well, and I’ll give you a non PT example, but a lot of students are all of a sudden using chat GPT and getting these.
Submitting their reports or their presentation, and some of the research studies are not real, or the information’s inaccurate. That is absolutely a concern. Is your information accurate? Are you getting the PT specific information? What is the data that’s been put into that language model and helping it learn what’s very important that.
Your information’s accurate and you are gonna get the output. You not just blindly trust it, you are still the clinician and have to make sure it is the right accurate output. But you wanna know that whatever AI you’re utilizing, you wanna know what they’re feeding that model and how often are they updating it?
How often are they making sure research studies very quickly evolve. So how often and how much are they updating it? And the other part is really the. Being able to say, is it compliant? This is still PHI. It’s patient information. Some AI companies are offshore, and that information you still have to understand.
It’s your patient data and there’s compliance issues with it. You wanna trust the companies that you’re working with and understand that they’re being as compliant as you would be in your own company as well.
Richard Leaver: As you bring up an interesting point, a prior episode we talked about hipaa, which is extremely scintillating conversations, you can imagine.
But, but joking aside, the what’s what was interesting about HIPAA is it has evolved and morphed over time. As technology changes, it’ll be very interesting to see how the laws not actually change, but interpreted and and regulated with this new technology because it’s almost as if the technology is always one step ahead of the regulations and laws.
I wonder how it will be managed from that perspective going forward. I don’t think anyone has the answer yet, do they?
Marla Ranieri: I think people are still trying to figure out who’s responsible for that. You as the clinician, your company, the AI tool or technology company you’re working with, those are still gray areas right now because it’s new and it is something we’re all gonna navigate together and make sure that we are ahead of the PHI and the compliance and concerns.
Richard Leaver: How can AI perhaps help address some of the key challenges in our outpatient pt? So I think we’ve touched on it already in some respects, there are many causes for staffing, burnout, reimbursement challenges in treating, and, uh, most. Evidence-based practice way, making sure we get paid for what we do. So I would imagine it’s all those and more.
Tell me more about how it might assist in those areas.
Marla Ranieri: Clinician shortage is a huge topic that all of us are struggling with. A lot of clinicians are leaving the field early and going nonclinical, and we need as many providers as we can have, ’cause the demand of the patient is there and we wanna be able to help as many people as possible.
So I think with the clinician shortage. Where people may be leading ’cause of burnout or because they didn’t realize there was such a documentation overload and so many administrative tasks that they have to do, but they really just wanna treat patients. So AI can assist by helping with documentation and, and the notes so that you can do more evals, focus on more patients, and be able to not be, we call pajama time, writing hours, writing notes after hours, right?
So I see it assisting tremendously in those ways and. We talked about that scribe tool, that intake, being able to just make it a little bit easier, even a discharge note. AI could write that discharge note for you and make sure, then you just. Are able to review it, make sure it’s what you wanted to say and add it in.
So, so that’s an area tremendously with where we talked about with the scheduling and the patient management, making sure the the patients got on the schedule. I think that helps with clinician burnout too, because sometimes clinics. Over schedule. They’ll schedule 16 patients a day. ’cause they know maybe it’s only gonna be 12 or 10.
Right? They just expect cancellations. Well, if you’ve got a tool in the background filling your cancellations, then you don’t have to over schedule. And then the days where everybody does show up, the PT doesn’t feel extremely overloaded. That is a, a huge asset with clinician burnout. Even if the patient’s schedule falls apart, they walk in and see a lot on their schedule, get overwhelmed and start the day with that mindset.
So being able to schedule the accurate amount and filling when somebody cancels so you’re not overloading your therapist, let’s say, if they all show up. I think that’s a tremendous way to combat. Some of that burnout.
Richard Leaver: When we talk about burnout, it’s nothing to do with the number of visits per day. The underlying cause is the administrative burden associated with the administrative re requirements to be able to document and be able to submit for payment reimbursement that actually is accepted by the payer and the thought of having technology to really.
Act as the check and balances to navigate those components is huge for a clinician, isn’t it? You know, they’re able to focus on what they went to school with, which is helping patients rather than jumping through all the administrative hoops that AI can certainly address. Probably the majority, if not all of them, perhaps.
Marla Ranieri: Yeah, absolutely. And if it’s helping on the back end. With the claims and making sure that you’re getting more clean claims and more claims paid accurately and correctly, then hopefully you have more money to pay your therapist, and that could help with that low compensation rate that therapists are feeling.
We are stretched with EBITDA as companies, but if we can make sure that we’re using technology to get those claims processed on time in a timely manner and not have so many that we’re chasing, then we can use that money elsewhere for our clinicians.
Richard Leaver: You know, write-offs are a huge issue for businesses, which translates to bad debt eventually.
I’d rather give that money to the clinicians than to the payers. Technology doesn’t come cheap. Obviously, over time technology does get cheaper, but the implementation of new technology comes at a cost, particularly with the amount of computer processing required for AI as I understand it. And then for instance, video capture.
I would assume that one of the reasons why video capture isn’t as. Prevalent as it will likely be in the future, is just because of the process in power and cost associated with it. Now, the, the key that the software technology is there, isn’t it, and even the hardware is probably more likely related to the cost.
Is is that accurate?
Marla Ranieri: Yeah, I think it gets costly when you’re adding so many different pieces together and you have a lot of line items, it’s almost like another. Technology piece that I have to add and integrate into my systems. So that’s where I highly recommend utilizing the ones that are integrated with your infrastructure, with your EMR, with your systems already, or encouraging your EMRs to make it part of their system.
Because the more you add on, the more cost you’re just adding versus it being the system and making physical therapy better. So that’s where I think that. We all have to align and just say like, this should be part of it. It should be part of your EMR. And if it’s not, then you should be looking the ones that have that and can incorporate it.
And I think that you’ll see a little bit less cost there. And then when you’re able to show the efficiency where maybe you only need one front desk for four therapists instead of one to two, then your front desk won’t have to do some of those. What do we call them? Busy tasks. They’ll be working on higher value tasks that they enjoy as well.
So you’ll be cutting down on manpower for tasks that people don’t necessarily want to do, but have to do like an administrative manual work and they can really use it to greet and talk to the patient and have that alliance, right. So I think that’s where you’ll see a lot of benefit in ROI making you more productive for how you can scale better.
Richard Leaver: Now, maybe it’s a little early for this, but have we actually managed to show savings associated with the implementation of AI technology at all, or is it still early days, perhaps.
Marla Ranieri: Therapeutic Associates and Prediction Health did a study to show savings with using the scribe tool, they call it Sidekick and the CPT coding tool that they have implemented through AI.
And they were actually able to reduce the amount of time they had to train people on CPT coding. And it was more targeted, right? ’cause that was part, the AI was actually helping. Do all of the chart reviews and also guide the therapist who needed more assistance and help and do targeted training for those.
So they saw that the time to train actually was cut down significantly. People were ramped up a lot faster to bill more appropriately for their time, which led to more revenue. So I think that was a really nice. Study, and they also did it with the sidekick, like we said, the scribe AI tool, allowing the therapist to do less after hours, charting time.
Whether you’re saying is that an ROI, I wouldn’t say, well, that you see more patients, but you’re probably losing less therapists and having less turnover, which is an ROI.
Richard Leaver: Yes. You’ve talked about what I was thinking with regards to, it’s unlikely to. Allow clinicians to see significant number of more patients because the way that we bill is majority of patients are still fee for service.
So essentially we are in many ways capped. To me it’s more about the. Indirect costs associated with providing care. So as you say, it’s that pajama time documentation outside of clinical hours, if that can be eliminated, the. Work life balance. Again, I don’t like that word, but certainly the, the stresses, strains, nonclinical stresses, strains on the clinicians are significantly reduced, which in turn should actually help with retention, should help with engagement, which will help with clinical outcomes.
It was predicted or calculated last year that if a clinician. Leaves the organization, the cost is approximately $65,000. If you can reduce clinician turnover by one or two percentage points within a large organization, that is a huge dollar amount. Saving any technology solution that can contribute towards increasing engagement or reduced turnover in itself should be welcome.
Yes.
Marla Ranieri: Absolutely. That, that’s, that’s one of the, the main, like you said, the secondary, but also looking at the scheduling pieces like we talked about before, that has a direct impact because. You are not gonna lose some of those patients that canceled and you didn’t fill $38,000 per provider an increase in that with that ability to use AI to help with the schedule management too.
And the indirect effect of that is that I. Patients actually get better because they are more frequently scheduled appropriately and don’t fall off. And that indirect value is huge as well. Who they tell their friends of how it went and how they did. If they tell their doctor they got better, right? So then of course there’s a huge indirect value that way as well.
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Richard Leaver: I had love to get your thoughts on where this is going. When I look back to the start of my career as pen and paper and all the documentation could be done on two sides of a sheet of paper, and then as I career progressed, I think it took 16 pieces of paper just to get the patient through their initial visit, and then EMR.
That came along and created some efficiencies and now we have natural language processing and some other functions with AI. In five years time, where do you, if you had a crystal ball, where would you see AI being used? Is it the same technology used by everyone? Perhaps it’s become a level playing field, or do you see further advances or a combination of the two?
Marla Ranieri: I really do see it being part of the ecosystem and part of your workflows. I do think AI is here to stay. I don’t think it’s replacing people by any means. I think it’s helping assist people be stronger in their jobs and what they do. I do think I see the future of more prediction, predicting outcomes, showing that to patients.
Patients being able to see in real time what they’re doing and are they. Per the AI predicted model, are they following it? Are they falling behind? Are they going ahead? I think that could be really valuable because patients love to see feedback. We don’t always do the best job with making sure they’re on plan and they’re really visible and they’re knowing exactly where they are and how much more they’re gonna have to do to get better.
So I would love to see that incorporated really well. And of course, like I said, being able to use past data and past research studies to just help. You as a provider do even better. I hope we become more and more as that primary care provider in this space and are the first ones to see patients for all different types of injuries.
I think that AI can help assist us there for maybe newer therapists that come into the field and just need a little guidance. Like we said, that may be a nice way as we start to move into that primary care provider role more and more.
Richard Leaver: For our listeners, where can people learn a little bit more about this?
Because it can be overwhelming. Thinking about how it can be used. Are there any resources or where would you direct people to learn more about I. AI is a topic in healthcare and specifically physical therapy.
Marla Ranieri: Yeah, there’s a lot of good industry conferences and associations that they can lean on. Hims, healthcare Information and Management System Society is a great conference where you’re gonna see all about AI in healthcare.
So I think that’s a great one to look at. Orca, which has partnered with the A PTA, that’s an organization for review of care and health app. And they’ve just added an AI component to it where they’re gonna provide a list of approved AI tools in the industry. That’s gonna be valuable. And like I said, they’re partnered with the A PTA, so nice to see that happening.
I also think that there’s a ton of digital resources out there of articles, journals, and online courses, health Tech magazine. PT in Motion have written some numerous articles on AI and healthcare, and then there’s a few free courses that you can take. Stanford University and Coursera have some free courses about AI and healthcare and medicine.
The resources are out there. It’s just us going out and adopting them and seeking them out. We have to find them and be advocates of learning about this. It’s not gonna just come smack us in the face. Different references and resources. And then looking at the early adopters and the thought leaders in the space and following them.
A lot of people are posting their own case studies. Amanda Brewer owns a company, just posted a, a phenomenal case study about her usage of AI and the tools. It’s also about us following those people on social media and online and looking at their case studies
Richard Leaver: before we finish. Uh, we’ve covered a lot of ground here for our listeners who are.
Private practice owners or leaders within larger organizations?
Marla Ranieri: Yeah, I would say designate somebody in your company to be the AI specialist, to learn about it and maybe with some journal reviews, make it part of your world because you don’t wanna be behind it. You wanna be ahead and you wanna be using it in the most thoughtful way as possible.
And to do that, you don’t need somebody who knows everything about it, but you do need to assign somebody to become that person.
Richard Leaver: Well, thankfully my organization, they won’t volunteer me, which is probably a good thing. Well, thank you so much Marla. I’ve really appreciated the last 45 minutes of your time and your insight.
It sounds an exciting time to be within healthcare technology. I think certainly transformative and I believe that the benefits are going to to come to fruition over the next few years. Thank you.
Marla Ranieri: Thank you, Richard. Appreciate it.
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