Dr. Heather Bassett - LinkedIn
Quick Pulses of Full Conversation: Tachyons, Soundbites, Takeaways..
Becoming the AI Whisperer
When we first brought on our data science team back in 2015, 16, we had one individual on the team at that point in time. And I would literally, I mean, poor Jason, I think I drove him bonkers, because I just thought this stuff was fascinating. And I had to pull myself away from learning how to code again. I was like, no, Heather, stop, stop, stop. step away um but i i mean part of it was i like I love to learn new things. And so I just found this a fascinating space. And I think I've fairly quickly recognized the opportunities, you know, within healthcare and within our own company. And then I also call myself the AI whisperer, because I think sometimes you need someone to translate between kind of the, you know, very kind of, you know, black and white, very technical space of data science and you know the technical all the technical details behind the the models to kind of the the all the way up to the c-suite to understand what what it does well what it doesn't do well what the limitations are you know where it opens up this up for risk and things like that and so i think i kind of I think all of that is what led me to the oversight that I have now.
The Evolution of Governance in Healthcare
Yeah, so that's funny. When I used to get on calls, we'd have, during the sales process, meet with the CIO or CTO, and they'd have just a couple of questions around AI. Now, when I get pulled into some of these calls or we get these questionnaires, like 100 questions that you have to fill out, So it's a much more rigorous process because healthcare systems are recognizing you have to put that governance in place and do very thorough vetting of either of your internal processes and your external processes.
Emergence of Chief AI Officers in Healthcare
Yeah, so there is a really started to see it last year, chief artificial intelligence officer. So we're kind of really elevating that to the C-suite. And it tends, you know, I think historically, like kind of chief data analytics or whatever, you know, previous titles would be, it tended to be more technical people. I think with the chief artificial intelligence officer, particularly in healthcare, and I'm sure it's true in other verticals as well, but in healthcare, I think you need someone that really understands in the hospital, the workings of the hospital that has, and you'll see several that actually are starting to be physicians or have a clinical background.
The Value of AI Conferences
I went to a very good HIMSS one this year. I've been to AI Med before. I actually like those to select a few that I'm not speaking at to take that pressure. But I just think they're great avenues to not only speak about all the great work that we do as a company in helping both providers and payers, but also I just I'd like to kind of speak with people and provide even just education around AI, because I think if you don't spend the time learning about AI, how it can help you, its risks, you're going to get left behind.
Transformative Potential of AI in Healthcare
It's funny, you talk about kind of making it exciting. I know in the early days, particularly when people weren't as familiar with AI, very scared of it, thought we were going to take their jobs. And then when you kind of worked with them through that change management process, like I would come back and get hugs. I mean, that's, you know, and I think that's, I think we're really starting to see a turn and I think generative AI is, I think it's very, very responsible for this, this turn because it's so you can touch it, you can feel it unlike, you know, kind of that predictive AI, but it's, it's really kind of recognizing now what all the problems we can solve using ai like you had just mentioned about you know physicians hate being in front of the medical record because they um uh you know it's a time sucked like and so how do we get you know the physician back in front of the the patient and really um if you talk with people that are investing right now their top three will be ambient AI, ambient AI, ambient AI. And it's really cool what is happening with that.
Heather's Journey Through AI and Medicine
I'm looking forward to a great conversation today, particularly around artificial intelligence. It's definitely an area I like to speak to because I think there's tremendous opportunity. But my name is Heather Bassett. I'm the chief medical officer at Exilis. I've been with the company since we started back in 2013. so i'm sure as you can imagine i've worn a lot of hats from sales to overseeing clinical teams currently i do oversee our data science team and they're the ones responsible for building the ai models that we feed into our platform which is not the typical kind of arrangement a lot of times data science reports up to a chief technology officer but i As I mentioned, I really enjoyed this space. I actually went to Carnegie Mellon way back in the day doing both biology and computer science. So I kind of like to think of this as bringing things full circle.
Dr. Bassett recommends these entities where AI governance is concerned:
Interesting case studies or other initiatives:
https://www.xsolis.com/blog/xsolis-beacon-healths-ai-powered-ally-innovative-intelligent-healthcare/
https://www.xsolis.com/blog/multicare-health-system-xsolis-a-true-partnership/
https://www.xsolis.com/blog/future-of-healthcare-powered-by-collaborative-ai/
https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/multicare-health-system-pilots-new-ai-tool-revenue-cycle
Recent articles from Heather:
https://www.psqh.com/analysis/looking-at-2025-trends-for-ai-in-healthcare/
https://www.oncozine.com/taking-a-closer-look-at-the-amas-new-prior-auth-survey-results/
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