Stanford Health AI Week Explores Future of AI in Medicine

Thousands of AI experts and enthusiasts convened at Stanford Health AI Week from June 2-6, hosted by RAISE Health. The event featured six symposia and workshops, including the RAISE Health Symposium, AIMI Pediatrics Symposium, and Stanford HAI Healthcare AI Policy Workshop.

Key Themes

1. AI Education and Clinician Preparedness

• Veena Jones, MD (Sutter Health) emphasized the need for clinician buy-in: "If we’re not adopting AI, we will be left behind."
• Kimberly Lomis, MD (AMA) highlighted AI's dual role as a clinical tool and educator.
• Brian Anderson, MD (Coalition for Health AI) shared initiatives to build AI curricula for nurses and specialty workflows.

2. Integrating AI into Clinical Practice

• Carla Pugh, MD, PhD advocated for AI to handle administrative tasks, freeing clinicians for patient care.
• Andrea Downing (The Light Collective) stressed patient co-design: "Think of us as colleagues, not just focus group participants."
• Dong-han Yao, MD demonstrated practical "prompt engineering" for AI tools.

3. AI in Biomedical Research

• Russ Altman, MD, PhD showcased foundation models for protein design and image analysis.
• Catalin Voss (Ello Technology) introduced AI agents to support pediatric care at home.

4. Equity and Policy

• Sanmi Koyejo, PhD revealed gaps in AI fairness evaluations: Only 16% of studies assess bias.
• Closed-door workshops debated governance for AI in insurance decisions.

Future Outlook

• Bryant Lin, MD affirmed medicine’s core as "human connection," even as AI outperforms in diagnostics.
• Nigam Shah, MBBS, PhD warned against the "Turing Trap" of redundant AI-human roles.
• Eric Horvitz, MD, PhD (Microsoft) dubbed this era the "Computational Revolution."

Watch the RAISE Health Symposium highlights.