The reality of generative AI in the clinic

Gary's Newsletter Podcast

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The reality of generative AI in the clinic

Gary Levin

Mar 27, 2025

Transcript

Peter Lee, President of Microsoft Research, moderates and introduces two physicians who use EPIC electronic health records in the UC Health system. Dr. Murray and Dr. Longhurst explain how they use generative AI (ChatGPT) in their clinics.

In our book, we predicted how AI would be leveraged in the clinic. Some of those predictions, I felt, were slam dunks, for example, AI being used to listen to doctor-patient conversations and write clinical notes. There were already early products coming out in the world, not using generative AI, that were doing just that. But other predictions we made were bolder, for instance, on the use of generative AI as a second set of eyes, to look over the shoulder of a doctor or a nurse or a patient and spot mistakes.

Two years ago, OpenAI’s GPT-4 kick-started a new era in AI. In the months leading up to its public release, Peter Lee, president of Microsoft Research, co-wrote a book full of optimism for the potential of advanced AI models to transform the world of healthcare. What has happened since? In this special podcast series—The AI Revolution in Medicine, Revisited—Lee revisits the book, exploring how patients, providers, and other medical professionals are experiencing and using generative AI today while examining what he and his coauthors got right—and what they didn’t foresee.

In this episode, Dr. Christopher Longhurst(opens in new tab) and Dr. Sara Murray(opens in new tab), leading experts in healthcare AI implementation, join Lee to discuss the current state and future of AI in clinical settings. Longhurst, chief clinical and innovation officer at UC San Diego Health and executive director of the Jacobs Center for Health Innovation, details his healthcare system’s collaboration with Epic and Microsoft to integrate GPT into their electronic health record system, offering clinicians support in responding to patient messages. Dr. Murray, chief health AI officer at UC San Francisco Health, discusses AI’s integration into clinical workflows, the promise and risks of AI-driven decision-making, and how generative AI is reshaping patient care and physician workload.