TDP 176: Stanford's Dr. Mike Pfeffer: Why we Shouldn't Always Want "Human in the Loop" for AI, Why AI Prediction Models are Only as Useful as the Problems they Solve, and Where AI Scribes Must Evolve

Subscribe on: RSS | SPOTIFY | APPLE PODCAST | GOOGLE | BREAKER | ANCHOR

On this episode of The Digital Patient, Dr. Joshua Liu, Co-founder & CEO of SeamlessMD, and colleague, Alan Sardana, chat with Dr. Michael Pfeffer, Chief Information and Digital Officer at Stanford Health Care and Stanford University School of Medicine, and Associate Dean at Stanford University School of Medicine, about "Why we Shouldn't Always Want "Human in the Loop" for AI, Why Prediction Models are Only as Useful as the Problems they Solve, Where AI Scribes Must Evolve, and more..." Click the play button to listen or read the show notes below.
‍

Audio:

‍

Guest(s):

• Dr. Michael Pfeffer, Chief Information and Digital Officer at Stanford Health Care and Stanford University School of Medicine, and Associate Dean at Stanford University School of Medicine
• Dr. Joshua Liu, Co-founder & CEO at SeamlessMD

‍

‍Episode 176 - Show Notes:

[00:00:07] Episode preview

[00:03:19] From Chemical Engineering & Music to Internal Medicine & Informatics

[00:07:06] Don’t Start with Prediction. Start with the Problem.

[00:09:48] Academic Research vs. Real-World Deployment

[00:12:01] Why “Human in the Loop” is a Broken Concept

[00:15:55] The Threshold for Rolling Out Imperfect AI

[00:20:01] Inside Stanford’s HIPAA-Safe GenAI Playground

[00:23:49] Roleplaying OSCEs with AI: The AI Clinical Coach

[00:26:35] How AI Will Separate the Best from the Rest—but Raise the Floor for Everyone

[00:29:54] Why “Small Data” is Finally Ready to Matter

[00:31:52] Balancing Data Collection with Privacy

[00:33:37] Beyond the Note: Where AI Scribes Must Evolve Next

[00:35:26] What Clinician Adoption Really Looks Like

[00:36:14] The Underrated Key to AI Scribe Adoption: Training

‍

Fast 5 Lightning Round:

1. What is your favorite book or book you’ve gifted the most?
   The Friction Project by Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao.
2. If you could instantly master any skill, what would it be?
   Singing.
3. Would you rather have Super strength, super speed, or the ability to read people’s minds?
   Super speed.
4. What is something in healthcare you believe that others might find insane?
   The Payment & Insurance System
5. If you could go back in time to any event or moment, when would it be?
   The origin of humans.

‍

The Digital Patient has been recognized as Feedspot's #1 Patient Engagement Podcast of 2025. Thank you to our listeners for making this happen!