Stanford Health Care is known for more than just top-tier hospitals and world-class research — it’s also becoming a center for bold innovation in how healthcare is delivered. From using AI to improve patient experiences to rethinking how doctors and patients interact, Stanford is pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in medicine.

In this first part of our two-part series, Karl Hightower, Vice President and Chief Data & Analytics Officer at Stanford Health Care and the School of Medicine, speaks with Sezin Palmer, EY’s Health AI and Data Leader, about how his team is working to transform care using data, artificial intelligence, and smarter digital tools.

Hightower shares how Stanford is using new technologies to alleviate the everyday frustrations doctors face, enabling them to spend more time with patients and less time typing. He also discusses how personalized care could become a reality, what it takes to make healthcare data truly useful, and why earning patient trust is just as important as any algorithm.

Edited Excerpts

Q: AI and advanced analytics have the potential to drive some of the most transformative changes in healthcare. What are some of the immediate opportunities you see, and what areas are you currently focused on at Stanford?

When you look at healthcare and you talk with clinicians, there’s a tremendous amount of text involved. There’s supposed to be that focus between the clinician and the patient, but a lot of the work involves typing, looking at a computer – it’s back and forth.

The question is: How do we take that out and get back to that one-to-one focus? A lot of that comes down to leveraging things like ambient learning – voice to text, being able to contextualize all of that information and make it meaningful, not just for the current encounter, but for all of the previous ones as well.

Your health and wellness is this large history, a continuum of things that have happened. So how do you summarize that? How do you bring that to light during the brief period clinician has with you? That is the most immediate opportunity, removing those friction points and turning them into more meaningful moments of execution between the patient and the clinician.

Looking across the full range of possibilities in healthcare and medical research, what’s one innovative breakthrough you’d like to see that could unlock even greater ways to improve people’s health?

It’s going to get into personalization. When you look at GenAI and everything else happening in this space, this is truly the big data problem. How do I create a simulation of you? How do I understand how things interact with you personally?

The opportunity lies in being able to map that out – to predict, model, and identify the best treatment or drug options that maximize your health and wellness. It’s not about a one-size-fits-all approach anymore; it’s about tailoring both the experience and the outcome to you. I think that’s the biggest opportunity we’re heading into.

When you consider pharmaceutical research, for example, now I can truly target drugs specifically to you. I can explore treatment paths for the conditions you may have, or even anticipate the things you might be exposed to through your environment, your food, and so on. I can begin to understand which diet works best. As we process more data, we can start simplifying what’s traditionally been incredibly complex. That’s the key, it’s about simplifying the complexity.

Q: As you think about how our healthcare system works, especially with payers, providers, and how care is delivered – what changes do you think are needed to better support and encourage innovation in this space?

It’s about making things more personalized and helping people understand their level of responsibility in their care. A lot of health outcomes actually happen outside of a visit to the doctor or any clinician. So how do you engage a person and help them be more accountable for their health?

Within American culture, there’s often this mindset of wanting a quick fix, something that can just take care of it. But the reality is, there isn’t one. It comes down to engaging people and making sure they understand the role they play in their well-being.

That means simplifying their lives to the point where they can ask: How do I actually know what’s best for me? It also means improving communication with clinician teams, so that when people do come in, they’re truly understood.

Q: As you work to improve care and unlock new insights through research, how are you balancing the push to advance AI with the need to protect patient data – especially around privacy, consent, and security?

Transparency and trust are absolutely key. People don’t want their information used against them and that’s completely understandable. But at the same time, those very details are critical to your overall health and wellness. So the question becomes: how do I clearly communicate what we’re doing, and how do I put patients in charge of their information?

I’m not someone who believes blockchain is the answer to everything, but this might be one of those instances where it could help. It’s a potential way to let patients control where their data is used, how it’s leveraged, and what research it contributes to, and, importantly, to actually see those opportunities transparently.

On the governance side, there’s very thoughtful leadership at Stanford, and governance decisions are openly published. You start to see frameworks like FURM (fair, usable, responsible models) and MedHELM, which evaluate how accurate large language models are in healthcare contexts. So there’s real, progressive thinking happening, along with practical applications.

Coming from outside of healthcare a few years ago, I saw how industries like retail and manufacturing used AI for efficiency and customer connection. Healthcare is different; it’s where ethics matter most. You have to fully understand that level of trust. That trust must be protected in every application of technology.

CDO Magazine appreciates Karl Hightower for sharing his insights with our global community.