TDP 192: UCLA Health’s CMIO Dr. Eric Cheng: Applying Randomization to Informatics, Creating AI-Enabled, Personalized EHR Experiences for Every Clinician, and Advancing Equity Through Accurate Data

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On this episode of The Digital Patient, Dr. Joshua Liu, Co-founder & CEO of SeamlessMD, and colleague, Alan Sardana, chat with Dr. Eric Cheng, CMIO at UCLA Health, about "Applying Randomization to Informatics, Creating AI-Enabled, Personalized EHR Experiences for Every Clinician, Advancing Equity Through Accurate Data, and more..." Click the play button to listen or read the show notes below.
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Audio:

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Guest(s):

• Dr. Eric Cheng, Chief Medical Informatics Officer at UCLA Health
• Dr. Joshua Liu, Co-founder & CEO at SeamlessMD

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‍Episode 192 - Show Notes:

[00:00:07] Episode preview

[00:04:30] Why Dr. Cheng chose healthcare for his interests in science and its impact on society;

[00:05:18] How Oliver Sacks' books inspired him to pursue neurology;

[00:06:40] How analyzing the United States Department of Veterans Affairs national database led him to informatics;

[00:09:55] Why AI won’t remove the need for discrete data in EHRs yet;

[00:011:55] “There’s no substitute for randomization” and how Dr. Cheng introduced randomization to health IT;

[00:13:20] Challenges of applying RCT methodology to informatics interventions;

[00:16:31] How UCLA randomized 250 physicians across two ambient scribe vendors;

[00:19:47] Handling self-selection bias with crossover randomization design;

[00:21:56] Surprising result: ambient scribes didn’t reduce time, but lowered cognitive load;

[00:26:13] Plans to track long-term scribe impact through burnout and satisfaction surveys;

[00:27:14] How notes became cognitively taxing as more stakeholders claimed ownership;

[00:31:14] The future of AI-personalized note views for each type of EHR reader;

[00:32:10] Why AI can’t overcome omitted variable bias without complete data;

[00:36:28] Concern that overreliance on AI could stunt medical intuition in trainees;

[00:38:59] Building the resident informaticist program at UCLA;

[00:40:13] Why the goal is informatics literacy, not producing only informaticists;

[00:41:49] Winning UCLA’s Justice Leadership Excellence Award for advancing equity through data;

[00:45:49] “You have to start somewhere” – pushing patients to self-report accurate demographics;

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Fast 5 Lightning Round:

1. What is your favorite book or book you’ve gifted the most?
   The Digital Doctor by Robert Wachter; also Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro – about an AI-based robot with hyper observation skills but no full fund of knowledge.
2. If you could instantly master any skill, what would it be?
   Networking (with people) more quickly.
3. Would you rather have Super strength, super speed, or the ability to read people’s minds?
   Reading minds – “an essential skill if you’re a leader.”
4. What is something in healthcare you believe that others might find insane?
   That the sacred one-on-one doctor-patient model isn’t always best and that sometimes many-to-one or one-to-many clinics could be better.
5. What is the last movie or TV show you saw?
   K-Pop Demon Hunter; also recommends the documentary AlphaGo as a great illustration of AI.

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