TDP 205: Duke Health’s Dr. Eric Poon: Understanding Informatics as a Sociotechnical Team Sport, Co-Creating AI Tools to Promote Accountability, and Why We Must Kiss a lot of Frogs to Find Real Innovation

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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 Poon, CHIO at Duke Health, about "Understanding Informatics as a Sociotechnical Team Sport, Co-Creating AI Tools to Promote Accountability, Why We Must Kiss a lot of Frogs to Find Real Innovation, 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 Poon, Chief Health Information Officer at Duke Health
• Dr. Joshua Liu, Co-founder & CEO at SeamlessMD

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‍Episode 205 - Show Notes:

[00:00:07] Episode preview

[00:04:19] How a volunteer shift in Duke’s ER unexpectedly pulled Dr. Poon from electrical engineering into medicine after he discovered he loved taking care of people.

[00:06:44] Why witnessing the limits of paper-based care during medical school pushed him toward informatics, inspiring him to imagine technology that reduces errors and improves efficiency.

[00:08:07] How residency at Brigham & Women's exposed him to early informatics pioneers and led him to develop text-pager result alerts, a workflow that influenced modern on-demand result notifications.

[00:10:45] Why Dr. Poon views informatics as a sociotechnical team sport, requiring empathy, deep understanding of clinician psychology, and clinical listening skills to uncover true user needs.

[00:16:41] How AI risk prediction becomes useful only when co-designed with clinicians, ensuring insights arrive at the right moment and acknowledging that failure is usually sociotechnical, not technical.

[00:20:12] Why reframing decisions as if a loved one were the patient helps resolve disagreement and guide teams toward the right next step in technology and care design.

[00:23:40] How his “kiss a lot of frogs” philosophy encourages humility and rapid evaluation, focusing on selecting solutions that fit the real problem rather than chasing hyped innovations.

[00:27:06] Why health systems must choose technologies that fit their unique problems, even as they learn from peers, since common pressures like burnout still manifest differently across organizations.

[00:29:46] How Duke’s three-floor innovation units create a safe, flexible environment to test new tools like computer vision while protecting patients and clinicians during experimentation.

[00:31:51] Why AI governance at Duke emphasizes proving real-world value and safety, extending IT governance by requiring teams to measure ongoing impact rather than stopping at approval.

[00:34:05] How AI scribes achieved unusually fast, organic adoption at Duke, with clinicians actively requesting access because the tool meaningfully reduced documentation burden.

[00:35:33] Why ambient technology increased clinician trust and productivity, accurately capturing encounters, reducing after-hours work, and enabling modular use across specialties.

[00:37:41] Why Dr. Poon urges the field to share both successes and failures, noting that too many organizations still reinvent the wheel unnecessarily.

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Fast 5 Lightning Round:

1. What is your favorite book or book you’ve gifted the most?
   “Switch” by the Heath Brothers; and “Homo Deus” by Yuval Noah Harari
2. If you could instantly master any skill, what would it be?
   "Cooking."
3. Would you rather have Super strength, super speed, or the ability to read people’s minds?
   "Mind reading."
4. What is something in healthcare you believe others might find insane?
   "How super-compartmentalized healthcare has become and how AI may democratize expertise."
5. What is the last movie or TV show you saw?
   K-Pop Demon Hunters.

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