AI's expanding role in health care at the heart of ASU summit
Dr. Priya Radhakrishnan (right), vice dean of ASU's John Shufeldt School of Medicine and Medical Engineering, and Dr. Maria Manriquez (center), a professor in the College of Medicine at the University of Arizona, talk with moderator Jyoti Pathak, dean of ASU's School of Technology for Public Health, about "Building a Smarter Healthcare System for Public Health" at the fourth annual Arizona Business and Health Summit on Nov. 20 at McCord Hall on the Tempe campus. Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU News
Artificial intelligence is increasingly woven into nearly every aspect of health care, from clinical practice to hospital logistics. According to Arizona State University’s Eugene Schneller, that growing influence is forcing both technology and medicine to adapt.
“AI is challenging health care, and health care is challenging AI,” said Schneller, a professor of supply chain management at ASU’s W. P. Carey School of Business and co-organizer of the Arizona Business and Health Summit 2025. “We’re at the very beginning of understanding where AI impacts health care. It affects the clinician, the patient and the organization. Health care in turn will make demands on AI for responsible, transparent use.”
The fourth annual summit, held Thursday, Nov. 20, at ASU’s Tempe campus, brought together health care professionals, business leaders, academics, researchers and policymakers to examine how artificial intelligence is reshaping health care delivery and management.
The all-day summit featured moderated panels, breakout sessions, a summary discussion and a networking reception. Discussions focused on the technology’s impact on medical professionals, patient care and organizational efficiency, as well as the emerging concept of “responsible AI,” which emphasizes ethical applications and the integrity of data behind automated systems.
Ohad Kadan, Charles J. Robel Dean and W. P. Carey Distinguished Chair in Business, said this year’s summit spotlighted AI because of the strong intersection between health, health care and business.
“The intersection between business and health care goes far beyond AI,” Kadan told a group of about 100 attendees. “It’s about data, entrepreneurship and supply chain management. There are many areas where these fields connect. Our partnership with the health care community is strategically important for our school.”
He added that artificial intelligence is now deeply embedded in W. P. Carey’s applied research, curriculum and operations across every discipline — from finance and accounting to marketing and supply chain.
“So AI is everywhere in what we do, and our leadership in this area is reflected in the theme of this conference,” Kadan said.
Schneller noted the summit comes at a pivotal moment, as AI evolves from acting as a “copilot” to functioning more autonomously in a shift he describes as “agentic AI.” That transition, he said, raises new questions about how technology will redefine the traditional roles of doctors, nurses and administrators.
“Health care has always had a division of labor,” he said. “So where does AI fit in, and how does it change that structure? As AI becomes more capable, how does it affect the autonomy of people in the organization?”
One of the keynote speakers, Susan Feng Lu, explored how artificial intelligence is transforming both labor markets and health care. She began by presenting research showing that entry-level job postings have dropped sharply in occupations most exposed to generative AI — a trend that signals a widening seniority gap and foreshadows how technology is reshaping employment and care delivery.
“These patterns prompt us to think about the future of work, especially in health care,” said Feng Lu, a professor of operations management and statistics at the University of Toronto.
She explained that AI is revolutionizing communication, clinical decision-making and the skills clinicians need to help patients better understand medical information. At the same time, it’s forcing professionals to adapt to new tools and roles.
Looking ahead, Lu predicted that clinicians would transition from AI users to AI supervisors, essentially overseeing algorithms, managing safety and ensuring ethical accountability. But the biggest challenges, she argued, are not technical.
“Integrating AI into existing health care systems is complex and often takes one to two years to fully implement,” she said. “It requires substantial changes to organizational structure, culture and incentives.”
Sherine Gabriel, executive vice president of ASU Health, emphasized that her college’s mission is “intentional, data-driven and outcomes-focused.”
“Why is this so important? Because health outcomes in this country — and in this state — are frankly quite poor,” Gabriel said. “If you compare the U.S. to other developed nations by nearly any metric — maternal mortality, premature mortality or preventable deaths — we consistently perform worse.”
Gabriel pointed to health literacy, workforce expansion and collaborative partnerships as key levers for improvement.
“Across all these efforts, innovation is our foundation, especially in AI, technology and engineering,” she said. “By combining geospatial data and predictive modeling, we can identify effective interventions, measure results and continuously improve.”
At the clinical level, Priya Radhakrishnan believes AI can relieve doctors from repetitive administrative tasks so they can focus on patient care.
“A large portion of primary care is gatekeeping — referrals, prior authorizations, routine stuff that consumes a physician’s time,” said Radhakrishnan, vice dean of clinical affairs and graduate medical education in ASU’s John Shufeldt School of Medicine and Medical Engineering. “Many of those tasks don’t require physician judgment and could be automated, freeing clinicians for high-value work.”
Yet, even as innovation drives progress, another challenge remains — trust.
“If you look at the history of medicine, issues around trust are cyclical,” said Maria Manriquez, a medical doctor and a professor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. “The pandemic opened many issues, and the rapidly changing information gave everyone whiplash. As clinicians, leaders and educators, we must build trust — and we need to think algorithmically about reaching people. Our social media feeds shape what people see, and we need strategies to infiltrate those channels constructively.”
Beyond hospitals and clinics, other speakers explored how AI is reshaping health care’s supporting infrastructure, particularly supply chains.
“A big megatrend right now is a shift from free trade to ‘friend-shoring’ or strategic trade,” said Dan Hopkins, senior vice president of Resilinc, a California-based software company that leads the market in supply chain risk and compliance solutions. “Washington is trying to pivot supply chains away from China toward friendly nations.”
Hopkins noted that both manufacturing and health care supply chains face similar challenges: fragmented workflows, messy data and high-stakes decisions.
“AI is mainly used to surface insights so a human-in-the-loop can act,” he said. “It helps humans act faster and smarter.”
Building on that theme, Bindiya Vakil, CEO of Assio 3D, described how 3D printing and AI are revolutionizing supply chain management.
“Supply chain touches everything — legal, compliance, inventory, sales, manufacturing — so it’s a natural place to integrate AI for broad impact,” Vakil said. “AI can take pre-authorized actions based on predefined rules so teams don’t have to be awake when something happens halfway around the world.
“AI never sleeps.”
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