thought leadership

I recently attended a conference on AI in healthcare, like so many taking place across the country. The room was electric. Slide after slide promised a revolution: flawless predictions, fewer mistakes, faster diagnoses. Some speakers...

Are we in an AI bubble?

In my most recent article in Fast Company, I discuss the issue that seems to be a major topic of discussion across traditional and social media: Are we in an AI bubble? As I examine in this article,...

Will Our Healthcare System Be Fixed From the Outside?

For anyone that has dealt with the US healthcare system in any way imaginable, there's mounting frustration. For those of us who have sought care for various issues, we know that barriers and confusion await...

The future of the U.S. health economy

Keeping up with the theme of the first post of 2026 (US Healthcare Enters 2026 With A High Degree of Uncertainty!), in this recently published article in Fast Company, I discuss some of the foundational problems with the US...

US Healthcare Enters 2026 With A High Degree of Uncertainty!

As we turn our attention to a new year, those of us who live and breath healthcare are holding our breaths to some degree! Why? A slew of major legislative and policy changes in 2025...

2025 Health AI Recap: Steady Progress, Few Breakthrough Use Cases, and Policy Challenges

It's hard to believe that we're now doing 2025 recaps already! I was just writing the 2024 recap for this blog. And, in my last article of 2024 for Fast Company, I had made some...

Is AI creating new growth dynamics for companies?

In my latest article for the Fast Company Executive Board, I discuss an exciting new dynamics observed in certain AI-native companies. These are companies that are usually formed in the last couple of years and...

The Prescription to Accelerate Technology Adoption by Providers

While there are great steps being taken in every part of the health innovation economy, one question that always comes to mind is how much of these innovations are actually making it to the frontlines...

Are We Headed in the Right Direction with Personalized Health?

If you've noticed that the talk of health, wellness, longevity seems to be everywhere these days, you're not the only one. Over the last decade, there has been an explosion of articles, podcasts, products, apps,...

Are the Barriers to AI Adoption in Healthcare Getting Addressed?

The third chapter in my recent book, AI Doctor: The Rise of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare, is titled "Barriers to AI Adoption in Healthcare". If anyone has ever been involved in trying to introduce new...

AI and the future of work: Predictions for the economy and workforce

In my latest article for the Fast Company Executive Board, I opine about whether AI will be a job creator or job destroyer and whether it will raise or lower wages. I examine previous periods...

Is the 2025 Venture Capital Investment Landscape Living Up to the Expectations?

Back in March, I wrote about the state of private market investments in health AI. While my focus was digital health and more specifically, health AI, the macro trends in private market investing, and especially...

Will the Incumbents Reap Most of the Economic Benefits from AI? Part Il

In part I of this series, we discussed the massive projected economic gains from AI over the coming years and decades. Given the very bullish projections about AI's potential future impact and economic upside, many...

Will the Incumbents Reap Most of the Economic Benefits from AI? Part I

This past 2 years, venture funding has been increasingly moving toward companies that are building AI solutions for different industries. As a matter of fact, by some accounts, AI companies now account for more than...

Is Our Innovation Economy at Risk?

In my latest article for the Fast Company Executive Board, I write about the real risks to the long-term health of the US innovation economy. This is the economy that nurtures ideas that become world-changing...

What Does The New Legislation Mean for Patients and Healthcare Providers? Part II

In the first article in this series, I discussed the evolution of healthcare coverage for a large part of the US population, previously uninsured, over the last 15 years. While the number of the uninsured...

What Does The New Legislation Mean for Patients and Healthcare Providers? Part I

The recent passage of President Trump's major domestic agenda bill, referred to as "Big Beautiful Bill' (BBB) means that there are major changes in how healthcare is paid for in the US. This is the...

Are New Cool Gadgets Making Us Healthier? Part II

In the first post in this series about whether apps, wearables, and other cool new tools are actually making an impact on our health, I examined the evidence from the real-world use of these tools....

Are The New Cool Gadgets Making Us Healthier? Part I

Since the release of iPhone and the mobile revolution (late 2000's,) the health and wellness space has gone through major transformations. Having a smart phone in everyone's pockets meant that you could load up that...

The global system is changing—here’s what business leaders need to know

Given the sudden and unexpected cuts to various federal agencies, including the Health and Human Services (HHS,) the Food and Drug Administration (FDA,) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC,) there is concern about the...

What Will Be the Impact of Economic Volatility and Budget Cuts?

The last few months have been scary times. It is the first time in my life when I feel that the pillars of the economic progress that we've made over the last 250 years are...

The Longevity Quest: Are We There Yet? Part II

In the first post in this series, we discussed the quest for a longer and healthier life and how unproven approaches are dominating this commercial markets right now. Beyond the preventive measures involving lifestyle changes...

The Longevity Quest: Are We There Yet? Part I

It is without a doubt that the last decade has seen a surge of interest in health, wellness, mindfulness, mental health, and longevity. I have to assume that with the mobile revolution and the ready...

Will AI Replace Doctors?

Later today, I'll be debating Avisha NessAiver, data scientist and creator of @DistilledScience, about whether AI will replace doctors! The debate will be moderated by the host of Digital Health Investor Talk podcast, Steve Wardell. ...

How Does the New Regulatory Regime Impact Healthcare Innovation?

Last year, several key developments sparked optimism about the government and industry coming together to create certainty and provide catalysts for the adoption of much needed technologies to make healthcare more accessible and of higher...

Investment Landscape in Health AI

Back in 2020, just as it looked like the entire world came to a stop from the pandemic, many of us thought that the capital markets would suffer greatly. After all, investors look for stability,...

Impact of AI on the Healthcare Workforce

One of the most salient discussions around AI is if it will lead to mass job losses and aggregate even more wealth in the hands of the few. I used the last 3 posts discussing...

AI Agents III

In the last post in this series about AI agents and their upcoming role in healthcare, I want to start with the following table that shows how the capabilities of generative AI models has evolved...

AI Agents II

In the last post, we discussed the improving capabilities of generative AI and its increasing ability to reason through complex problems. This is the evolution that will be critical if AI systems will become fully...

AI Agents I

The last 2 years has seen a dizzying pace of innovation when it comes to foundational AI technologies. While no transformative innovation happens overnight and most innovations that move the needle are usually the result...

5 predictions for advancements of AI in healthcare in 2025

In 2024, I joined Fast Company's Executive Board and began writing articles about healthcare and technology. I've written about Longevity and last week, I wrote my predictions for health AI in 2025. I'm including the...

Annual Recap – 2024 in Healthcare Technology

While this has been a very turbulent year in all manners of speaking, for health technology it has been a rather eventful year and mostly positive. While the world has been dealing with major geopolitical...

The Shifting Landscape of AI Regulations in Healthcare III

As we discussed in the last post in this series, there are new developments in the regulation of health AI products. While the FDA is one key body in clearing these solutions for their efficacy...

The Shifting Landscape of AI Regulations in Healthcare II

In the last post, I discussed how a lower bar for clearing AI products by the FDA has not led to the faster adoption of these products by the medical community and in fact, it...

The Shifting Landscape of AI Regulations in Healthcare I

While there has been an explosion of FDA-approved health AI products, most have not yet gained much traction in the everyday clinical workflows. There are several reasons for this. First, it's important to understand the...

AI Medical Coding V

In the final post in this series, I'll discuss the approaches that can make a very necessary and tedious part of administering healthcare more automated and where it can go from here. If you examine...

AI Medical Coding IV

The emergence of autonomous medical coding solutions that could eliminate the need for care providers to do their own coding or human coders to review their codes or do the coding on their behalf can...

AI Medical Coding III

One of the things that has kept healthcare from becoming more convenient and cost-effective is the complexity of its processes. Human being are complex in every imaginable way possible. When a condition is diagnosed, there...

AI Medical Coding II

While finding and marking the right codes for a medical encounter or procedure seems like a trivial task in the big scheme of things, it is actually rather important. Allow me to elaborate. Not only...

AI Medical Coding I

While everyone is talking about how impactful AI will be in healthcare, I've been emphasizing that the long-term impact of this powerful technology will be beyond our wildest imagination but the rollout will be slower...

Can AI finally usher in the era of population health management at scale? Part II

The core issue that makes managing a population's health is that by asking providers to carry out population health management, we’re asking them to take on activities that are outside their traditional role, training and...

Can AI finally usher in the era of population health management at scale? Part I

One of the most discussed topics in the delivery of healthcare over the last ten years has been population health management. The idea is that we can manage everyone's health in a way that keeps...

AI in Stress Management and Sleep

More than half of adults globally suffer from insufficient sleep, according to a study by Wakefield Research. This is bad news, because the lack of sleep can contribute to a number of major health issues...

AI in Fitness

As a result of the pandemic, many fitness tech startups are capitalizing on people being home more and avoiding going to the gym. As people were temporarily unable to seek wellness experiences from physical businesses...

AI in Nutrition IV

Tel-Aviv’s Nutrino uses AI to recommend diet plans based on signals like stress and activity levels. Medical device giant Medtronic acquired Nutrino at the end of 2018, with the stated aim of using its technology...

AI in Nutrition III

In Japan, Nestlé’s Wellness Ambassador program provides personalized nutrition by allowing users to upload photos of the food they’re eating. Its app then uses AI to analyze the photos and combines that with personal data...

AI in Nutrition II

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics is just one of many bodies that’s calling for caution here, saying, “The practical application of nutritional genomics for complex chronic disease is an emerging science and the use...

AI in Nutrition I

Nutrition is an area of great interest with lots of investment and a huge amount of promise but where little progress has been made so far. Although a number of companies are already touting personalized...

AI in Population Health Management I

HEALTH AND WELLNESS PROMISES to be a huge area for AI in healthcare. Doing good public health, keeping people healthy at scale and carrying out preventive health have been difficult, to say the least. People...

AI Patient Assistants II

Self-triage chatbots were adopted more rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic, when they were trained to evaluate COVID symptoms and connect high-risk users with details for telehealth providers or local testing centers. Buoy Health, GYANT and...

AI Patient Assistants I

One of the key issues that has always plagued the healthcare system has been the disparity of information between providers and patients. A provider knows where to send a patient if they have a cough...

Clinical Workflows V

Artificial intelligence could be about to improve the way nurses do their jobs. Recent exciting developments include bottles which automatically issue reminders to drink, diapers that sound an alert when wet and sensor-equipped stoma pouches....

Clinical Workflows IV

One of the emerging concepts in this area is that of ambient intelligence. Ambient intelligence occurs when sensors such as microphones and cameras provide data to an AI that can analyze what’s going on in...

Clinical Workflows III

In my opinion, documentation assistants will be one of the best and earliest use cases where AI will make a significant difference in the practice of medicine. Clinical documentation in the EHR is one...

Clinical Workflows II

AI can also start to provide first-line support to patients in the form of bots using voice or text. This would be helpful to patients but also free up the care team to focus on...

Clinical Workflows I

Practicing medicine is complicated and involves many activities. This is because human body is complex and there are many moving parts. On top of it, there are many activities that need to be done around...

Generative AI in Healthcare Administration and Operations

It’s estimated that about 25% of this $4 trillion is due to administration, which means that we spend $1 trillion a year on paperwork. It’s no wonder that healthcare is now the number one employer,...

Generative AI and Clinical Decision Support

In a conversation with Kang Zhang, MD, one of the pioneers in the applications of healthcare AI, he mentioned to me about the amazing potential of generative AI to be a game changers in healthcare....

Generative AI in Medical Affairs and Commercial Groups

As with clinical trials, regulatory submissions, pharmacovigilance, communicating with providers and patients, and monitoring social media for adverse events of drugs involves a large amount of information in the form of narratives. Large language models...

Generative AI in Clinical Trials

Once you find a promising drug or device, you need to take it through trials. This is another long and complicated process. We need to make sure that these products are safe and effective before...

ECONOMICS BLOG

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Let’s Not Forget The Long-Term Issues!

Given the range of pressing issues in the news these days, there doesn't seem to be enough bandwidth for much else. Geopolitical tensions from China to Ukraine, ongoing pandemic, and a range of economic issues,...

Is A Recession Around The Corner?

In the last post we talked about the difficult task facing the Fed with interest rates. If interest rates are raised to cool off excess demand and at the same time the short-term drivers of...

Will Demand Stay Strong?

In the last post, we discussed the issue of the 4-decade high inflation and what is causing it. In previous posts, I had reviewed the data from the last few decades and how there has...

What Will Happen to Prices?

In the last few months, we have extensively discussed the issue of inflation. My focus has been on examining the drivers of inflation, why it picked up after years of dormancy, whether it's transient (whatever...

US Needs to Seize This Moment

US posted higher economic growth than China last year for the first time in decades. This was due to a strong government response to the pandemic and the underlying dynamic nature of the US economy...

The Financial Sector Can Determine China’s Future Potential

The financial sector of any economy is very different than any other sector. It supplies the key ingredients for all of the other sectors of the economy: Capital! Any problems in this sector rapidly disseminates...

Key Challenges to China’s Long-Term Economic Growth

China's rise as an economic power has been marked by tapping the potential of a large, mostly under-used population. It moved hundreds of millions of people from rural to urban areas and became the production...

US Economic Resurgence and Implications For the International Competition

Something amazing happened last year: US had a higher economic growth rate than China! This has not happened in decades. US being a large, fully developed economy with a high GDP/Capita is expected to grow...

The Emerging Landscape of International Competition II

Continuing with our discussion of how the competition for international influence and geopolitical climate will evolve in the coming decades and century, it's worth examining some of the key drivers of economic growth and international...

The Emerging Landscape of International Competition I

Last year saw several milestones signifying China’s rising global influence: it attracted more foreign investment than the U.S. for the first time and the number of Chinese companies on Fortune’s list of the world’s largest overtook the U.S. And for all...

Will China Continue to Defy Gravity?

In the last post, we discussed China's astonishing economic growth over the last few decades. As a result, it is now the world's second largest economy and continuing to gain on US. This is not...

Will China Overtake US in This Decade?

Since the 1970s, China has been racing to become the world’s largest economy. This wasn't obvious when China first began to open its economy with market reforms and consequently began to experience meaningful economic growth....

Why Did We Wait So Long To Invest in Infrastructure?

The recently passed infrastructure bill that aims to upgrade America's declining infrastructure makes serious investments in many areas that have been under-invested in for decades. This is great news in many respects. It will improve...

Finally, Investing in America’s Infrastructure II

The recently passed infrastructure bill is great news for the long-term productivity of American workers and wage growth for them. We looked at the transportation investments in the bill in part of this series and...

Finally, Investing in America’s Infrastructure I

In the last few posts, I have examined the impact of infrastructure spending on a country's overall productivity and wages. We also looked at data that showed America's investments in infrastructure are way down over...

What About Infrastructure? Part III

So far, in this series, we have discussed the importance of infrastructure investments on the overall productivity of the economy and its impact on wages and prosperity. We saw in a graphs that US has...

What About Infrastructure? Part II

Every year, the US spends more than $400 billion on public infrastructure. But annual infrastructure funding routinely falls short of capital and maintenance requirements, contributing to deterioration of the country's infrastructure assets. In 2017, the...

What about Infrastructure? Part I

One of the key building blocks of a healthy and growing economy is top notch infrastructure. What is infrastructure? Well, these days we have heard a lot of debate about this and it's a worthwhile...

Setting the Stage for the 21st Century Dominance Part VI

Once upon a time, enthusiasts designed a formal education system to meet the economic demands of the industrial revolution. Fast forward to today and, with the current global economic climate, it seems apparent that the...

Setting the Stage for the 21st Century Dominance Part V

So far in this series, we have tackled the issue of industrial policy and how it can impact a country's prospects. Industrial policy can mean that a country's government has a vision and a plan...

Big Bad Scary Inflation III. Is It Temporary?

Since we are tackling one of the most discussed economic (and political!) issues of the day and how its re-emergence after many decades is scaring everyone, paying close attention to historical benchmarks is quite informative....

Big Bad Scary Inflation II

In the first post in this series, I discussed the long-term low inflation that we have experienced here in US for the last few decades. This had sparked intense discussions as to why we did...

Big Bad Scary Inflation I

Every channel you tune into these days, every newspaper you read, and every website you visit, there is one topic that is dominating the discussions: inflation! Even those with little interest in economics or politics...

Setting the Stage for the 21st Century Dominance Part IV

So far in this series (Setting the Stage for the 21st Century Dominance,) we've focused on what makes for good national industrial policy and what can give a country an advantage in the international sphere....

Setting the Stage for the 21st Century Dominance Part III

In the previous entry in this series, we discussed the long-term decline in US public sector R&D investments and how that trend does not bode well for the continued US pre-eminence as a world power...

Setting the Stage for the 21st Century Dominance Part II

In the last blog post, we discussed the emerging competition between the established superpower, U.S., and the emerging superpower, China. Many are speculating that in the coming years China will become the largest economy in...

Setting the Stage for the 21st Century Dominance Part I

As congress gets into the later stages of debate on whether to pass the Biden economic agenda, it is worth taking a pause and thinking about what's at stake here. America is the world's dominant...

Evolution of US healthcare system: Part V

In our last installment of this series, I’d like to review some of the ongoing changes in our healthcare system and their potential impact on how healthcare is practiced in US. First, health insurance...

Evolution of US Healthcare System: Part IV

So, now you are the US government, the number of people in Medicare is increasing and they live longer and get better and more expensive treatments for their heart disease, arthritis, and Alzheimer’s and you...

Evolution of US Healthcare System: Part III

Well, it looks like big trouble for the governments who committed to providing healthcare to some or all of their population. After all, who could have predicted all of the expensive advances that would be...

Evolution of US Healthcare System: Part II

So, now everyone is living longer thanks to improved quality of life and better medicines. That’s a good thing, right? Well, yes and no. Longer life expectancy and more active life means higher productivity, thus...

Evolution of US Healthcare System: Part I

The US healthcare system is one of the top five economies in the world. Yes, that is true!! It’s time to step back and ask: How did we get here? The ongoing debate about how...

A Discussion of Economics and Its Impact on Our Lives!

In the City that I live (the Big Apple!) it seems that economics and finance reign supreme! Large number of people are employed in the financial sector and key investment decisions by them or the...