In this week's episode, Cara is joined by Antionette Thomas, MSN, RN, PNP, and Chief Experience Officer at Microsoft Worldwide Health and Life Sciences, to discuss AI in healthcare. Antionette shares her journey from healthcare to the tech industry and her excitement for AI's positive impact on the healthcare community. They address the fears and hesitations nurses have about adopting AI in their facilities and explore its valuable use cases when implemented correctly. The conversation also highlights AI's potential to create personalized healthcare, improve long-term health, and enhance health equity.
Guest Overview
Antoinette Thomas, MSN, RN, PNP, is the Chief Experience Officer for Microsoft Worldwide Health and Life Sciences. With a 33-year career in healthcare, she spent 17 years in pediatric critical care before transitioning to the healthcare IT industry 16 years ago. Antoinette is dedicated to transforming the consumer experience across the healthcare ecosystem by empowering patients, clinicians, and employees with data and digital technology. She is active in Microsoft's Bachelor and Masters programs and frequently speaks at industry events like HLTH and ViVE. Additionally, she serves on the board of Courage to Caregivers, a nonprofit, and enjoys vintage furniture, travel, fitness, and outdoor activities involving mountains or water.
Episode Overview
In this NurseDot Podcast episode, Cara Lunsford and Antoinette Thomas explore the intersection of nursing, technology, and leadership. Antoinette shares her journey from bedside nursing to becoming a leader in healthcare technology, highlighting the challenges and opportunities she encountered along the way. The conversation delves into the role of AI in healthcare, the importance of nursing leadership in decision-making, and the potential for technology to enhance patient care and health equity.
Episode Transcript
Cara Lunsford (00:00.088)
My wife has worked in sound for many, many, many years. And it was just kind of fortuitous that when I started hosting this podcast, she's like, yeah, I think I could probably do your sound. And I'm like, okay.
Antoinette Thomas (00:21.38)
Well, your sound is coming through fantastic on my end. Like it's so soft and clear. So she does a good job.
Cara Lunsford (00:29.88)
Perfect, perfect. Yeah, she's been doing this for many, many years. She even won an Emmy for sound, which is pretty awesome. Let me see, I feel like you're kind of backlit all of a sudden.
Antoinette Thomas (00:35.972)
Okay.
Antoinette Thomas (00:42.18)
I am, it's there. Let me do this. Let me try this.
Cara Lunsford (00:46.744)
you know what, if you close your shades, like you have a little drape. Yep. Perfect.
Antoinette Thomas (00:50.34)
Mm -hmm
Hold on, what, like, yep, right there, yep. Hold on.
Antoinette Thomas (01:11.908)
Let's see if this helps. I don't know if it's going to help or not.
Cara Lunsford (01:17.016)
If you have a light in front of you, or perfect, then we'll light you from the front.
Antoinette Thomas (01:20.676)
I do.
Antoinette Thomas (01:24.388)
Hold on, let's try this.
Antoinette Thomas (01:28.836)
I don't know if that's going to help or not. It's very...
Antoinette Thomas (01:34.948)
helpful.
Cara Lunsford (01:39.384)
pay.
Antoinette Thomas (01:39.396)
That's better.
Cara Lunsford (01:41.784)
Perfect. Alrighty. Let's do this thing, Antoinette, let's do it.
Antoinette Thomas (01:44.58)
Okay, let's do it. Let's do it.
Cara Lunsford (01:50.328)
okay. So I had seen the other day when Rhea reached out to me and she said, we have this really incredible opportunity to have this guest. And I said, yes, I saw this. And she's like, do you want to be on the call? I'm like, no, the first call that you did. And I was like, no, I don't want to be on the first call because I always like to meet somebody for the first time. I don't like things to be like, let me...
Antoinette Thomas (02:18.564)
Scripted. Yeah, fake.
Cara Lunsford (02:19.576)
Yeah, no, no. Yes. I don't know if you've listened to any of our podcasts, but there's nothing scripted about our podcast.
Antoinette Thomas (02:26.372)
I know, and I love that so much because I sit on so many panels and I do a lot of podcasts and there's a lot of prep that goes into those, but then it just, it does not seem like it's authentic, like it's practiced.
Hehehehe
Cara Lunsford (02:43.448)
Yep. I know. And that's the absolute last thing that I want. I'm like, okay, what's the very minimum that I need to know about Antoinette Thomas so that I don't seem like a complete idiot when I come onto the podcast? But that is like, when I'm saying like the minimum, I'm like, she's a nurse. She works at Microsoft. And yes. So,
Antoinette Thomas (03:06.18)
Yeah. Yes. Yes.
Cara Lunsford (03:12.6)
What I would really love is I would really love if you would introduce yourself to our audience and tell us a little bit about yourself, like about your, you know, your past as, as a, you know, as a nurse, but how you got into where you are today. I think there's background noise.
Antoinette Thomas (03:31.204)
Yeah, hold on one second. Let me tell my husband. Hold on.
Antoinette Thomas (03:51.588)
Alright, we got that under control.
Cara Lunsford (03:53.048)
I, in my mind, I was like, I can't hear what she's saying. But if it were me, I'd be like, honey, what the hell are you doing over there? Like, shut up.
Antoinette Thomas (04:06.148)
It is, well, the kitchen is off to my right. And so Mondays he's at home, not in his office. And so he's prowling about and the kitchen is right over here. So he was snacking and he is now on one hour notice, like no snacking for the next hour. So I'm sorry. And that's authentic as it, Michael.
Cara Lunsford (04:29.371)
what's your husband's name?
Michael, it's okay. It's just one. It's just an hour.
Antoinette Thomas (04:34.02)
Hehehehehe
It's just an hour, he'll survive. So we were at introductions.
Cara Lunsford (04:41.624)
that was fun.
Yes, yes. So tell me about yourself and just a little bit about just who you are as a professional, as a person, and then kind of how you've made your way into where you are today with Microsoft.
Antoinette Thomas (05:00.228)
Yes. So Antoinette Thomas, also known as Tony. So if you want to call me Tony, feel free. A lot of people out in the industry know me as Tony as well. Nurse practitioner, actually. Data nerd. Experienced futurist, nursing futurist. Some titles that I used to describe myself, but...
I am going into my 33rd year in healthcare. And so 19, I know, right? Although I'm getting tired. I'm getting tired. Yeah. Well, that's a good, that 17 is an important number to me because got out of nursing school in 91 and went into my first job.
Cara Lunsford (05:37.976)
I hear ya, I'm only at 17 and I'm pretty tired.
Antoinette Thomas (05:53.604)
And I did practice pediatric critical care for 17 years. So a full 17 years before coming out into the industry side. And I've been on industry now for 16. So that's just a little bit about my background. I started as a bedside nurse in the pediatric ICU. Absolutely loved it. I do remember, and I just told this story recently, Kara, I do remember the first
like week on the job and it was really more observation and I can remember like the first day going out to my car in the parking lot at the end of the 12 -hour shift and literally feeling so afraid about my god like how am I going to do all this how am I going to learn this how am I not how am I going to help keep someone's child alive but I knew I could do it and that's really kind of I see was where I caught the
the bug for technology. And if I think about technology in 1991 versus today and how new nurses have to integrate themselves into a job and into practice and like how scared I felt at that time and thinking about like how overwhelmed they might feel at this time, I can empathize. But did that for 17 years, somewhere in the middle of that got my master's degree.
And then it was time to really kind of make a decision about what my next steps were going to be. And I thought about going back to be an anesthetist. And my husband was like, do we really want to do two and a half years of full -time school? You have kids. How are we going to recoup that investment? And I'm like, you're right. And it was just kind of something that wasn't.
I didn't have a passion about it, but I thought that would be something good for me to do. And then I thought, no, you know what? I love data. And I was kind of always one of those nurses that would volunteer for IT selection process or, you know, programs. I would volunteer for quality committee. So I thought I'm going to try to get myself out on the tech side of the business. And that was early 2000s.
Antoinette Thomas (08:19.492)
and there were not a lot of clinicians going out into the tech industry. But I tried, you know, I used my network and I did use a recruiter for the first time and was able to get some interviews with a company and everyone that's in nursing will know the Alaris Smart IV Pump, which is now, I think BD owns Alaris.
But at the time it was just a standalone little company, the first smart IV company, and I went to work for them. And I remember the guy that hired me, he said, we really want you on this team. He said, but there's a lot of people above me who are telling me this is going to be a bad idea. And I asked him why. And he said, because they're afraid that you're gonna hate it and that we're gonna invest all of this time, money.
to train you, to educate you, and then you're gonna go back to the hospital. And I said, I will know within the first two or three weeks whether or not this is for me and I will be honest with you. Like I'll tell you right away. And I never hated it. I loved it. And you know, 16 years later, here I am. I've worked for various companies. They thought, well, I think they thought I was going to...
Cara Lunsford (09:39.0)
Why did they think you were gonna hate it? Like what did they think you were gonna hate about it?
Antoinette Thomas (09:45.956)
Miss the bedside so terribly. And I'm not going to lie, I did miss the bedside. You know, like when that's such a big part of your life for so many years, being at the bedside and interacting with people in very vulnerable times of their lives and you're, you're helping them. Like you do miss that and you do miss, there's a certain energy about the hospital vibe and you miss that a little bit. You miss, you know, all the companionship.
of the nurses that you are working with and getting through the day with. So I did miss that. And there are still times, like when I go and visit my customers now, there are still times where like, my gosh, it's like riding a bike. Like you walk in the hospital door and the vibe is still there. So that's kind of what they were thinking. But I loved it. And I was learning.
so much and there was no like instruction manual for nurses or physicians or any other type of clinician at that time to come into that world. So I was learning things from scratch but applying all of my clinical background and my experience to that, you know, that new knowledge. So that's a little bit about me. I've worked for some startups along the way which also was tremendously beneficial for my career because
Startups are like getting your MBA without having to pay for an MBA.
Cara Lunsford (11:19.096)
Thank you. I keep saying that I want some university, anyone who's out there listening, anyone, that as a nurse who was a founder of a startup, who then sold my startup to nurse .com, Relias, I keep saying, I should have an honorary MBA. I'm like, someone should give me an honorary MBA.
Antoinette Thomas (11:26.916)
Yes.
Antoinette Thomas (11:44.292)
Yes.
Yes, you're learning, you know, about product, how to build a product, how to launch a product, how to work with all the different teams in the startup organization to bring the product to market. If you have a board of directors, your investors, your, the secretary, all of it, finance, all of it. And you live quarter to quarter. It's just a new way, day to day.
Cara Lunsford (12:05.24)
I had all of that.
Cara Lunsford (12:11.096)
Yep. Yep. You live day to day. You're like, are we going to be open tomorrow? I don't know. Maybe not.
Antoinette Thomas (12:20.143)
Yes, yes. But, and I'm sure you'll agree with this, startups are the number one way to change your mind about what's possible.
Cara Lunsford (12:35.576)
Yes.
Antoinette Thomas (12:36.228)
because it's really hard. And you just wake up every day and you're like, I'm gonna do the best I can do. And we're flying the plane as we build it. And I know that's a cliche statement, but it is absolutely true. And you really learn what you're made of.
Cara Lunsford (12:47.864)
100%.
Mm -hmm. It's so true. I know it's not for everyone. And we talk a little bit about that, like on some of the other episodes that we've done about entrepreneurship and innovation and stuff like that. But you definitely get to see what you're made of. And you realize you're more resilient than you thought, you're stronger than you thought, you're more innovative than you thought, more creative.
You have to find creative ways to survive, especially through difficult economic times, through a pandemic. That was my challenge was trying to keep my business alive through a pandemic. And it's one of those classic things of doing the hard thing, getting outside your comfort zone. We talk about that kind of ad nauseum.
Antoinette Thomas (13:28.964)
Yes.
Cara Lunsford (13:49.912)
but it's so true and it sounds to me like that's exactly what you've done, which is you were probably super comfortable to some extent after that many years in pediatric critical care. I mean, you were probably one of the experts, one of the senior nurses, you're the go -to person, you kind of go in and you're like, I've seen so much at this point and...
Antoinette Thomas (14:03.3)
Mm -hmm.
Antoinette Thomas (14:14.66)
Yeah.
Cara Lunsford (14:18.744)
to leave that is, it's exciting. And I'm sure you were excited on some level, but it's also really scary. And we get, we have identity crisis. Am I a real nurse anymore?
Antoinette Thomas (14:24.74)
Hmm.
Antoinette Thomas (14:33.311)
Yes, yes, yes. And I think that's such an important point because when I was doing this, like I said, you know, this is early 2000s. There weren't many other people that I could call up on the phone and say, I'm struggling right now. I'm trying to make this decision. You know, even my parents were like,
are you sure you want to do this? Like you've gone to school for seven total years and I'm like, I'm sure I'm grown. I'm sure. And I know it seems very risky, but I really feel like it's going to pay off in, in it, in it did. But yes, having to like give up this identity that you have had.
your credentials. And I was like, my gosh, will I still be able to use my credentials? And I can tell you like every tech company is, my God, the credentials make a difference. But there were also nurses when I left who were like, you're going to the dark side. You know, you're not going to be a real nurse anymore. And I did let that I know I did let that get to me for a little bit. It's hard not to.
Cara Lunsford (15:51.672)
now.
Antoinette Thomas (15:53.604)
But that was absolutely not the truth, you know? And I realized that right away. I was just, I always tell people, I have never stopped practicing nursing. I just have a different tool set that I use. And, you know, for me, like life is really about what are you gonna do for other people? How are you gonna help other people? And that's why I love nursing so much. And I feel that in my roles since leaving,
bedside practice, like I get to help thousands of people at a time. And that makes me feel really good.
Cara Lunsford (16:27.832)
Yep. I feel the same way, Tony, that I very similarly, I've just shifted my focus and now the people that I'm taking care of are nurses. And so I'm using my nursing background to take care of this population of people that are really suffering and having a very difficult time. And my ratio is not great. It's one to 4 million. It's really tough.
Antoinette Thomas (16:41.028)
Nah.
Antoinette Thomas (16:49.86)
Yes.
Antoinette Thomas (16:57.444)
Yes, yes, true story.
Cara Lunsford (16:57.88)
I'm out.
I was like, wait, you got one to five? I got one to four million. My ratio is really off. Yeah. But I'm really just taking so much of what I did. I did pediatric oncology for the first eight years of my career at Children's Hospital. And I'm just taking so much of what I learned along the way as a director of nursing.
Antoinette Thomas (17:07.396)
Right, right.
Cara Lunsford (17:29.592)
everything that I'm home health hospice, all the different areas that I've worked in and taking all of that and using that now. And I like you am very excited about AI. I know people are kind of scared of it. So like, let's talk for a second about just like the fear factor.
Antoinette Thomas (17:47.428)
Yeah.
Antoinette Thomas (17:53.284)
Yeah. So I kind of look at the fear factor from a couple different angles. First is, if we think about it on a macro level, AI right now, AI has been around and it's been used in healthcare. But just in this last year, it's really come to the forefront for multiple reasons. But we are living in a time right now of great change and instability.
in our world, not just in our country. And so people on a macro level are dealing with all of these changes and uncomfortable things and uncertainty. And like any good invention that's going to change things for the better, it tends to pop up when there is a lot of change. You know, I think of like Thomas Edison,
and the light bulb, I think of Henry Ford. Okay, we're not going to do horses and carriages anymore. I'm going to start this assembly line. We're going to make a car. Like all of these great shifts in AI is an, they were not happy. They were not. So AI is the same thing. And on a macro level, it's really hard right now. On a more micro level, I think that, you know,
Cara Lunsford (18:59.896)
Yeah. The buggy whip makers were not happy about that. The buggy whip makers were not happy. No.
Antoinette Thomas (19:17.54)
The fear, there's also like this misinformation that goes around and we cannot catch up with all the rapid exchange of information, social media, fake news, whatever we want to call it. So there's a lot of uncertainty in how people understand AI and what it is and how it's going to help. So on a micro level, people get concerned about like, is it going to take my job?
Is it gonna take my agency away in my job? And there might be some of that that will go on, but the majority of how AI is going to be used is not going to be used in that way. It's gonna be to enhance the work that you do. So if we take nurses, for example,
And I know our core audience is really kind of like the bedside nurse, people that are going in day in, day out and delivering that care. So the one potential out of many for AI is to take a lot of that task burden away and automate some things for them to free up their IQ work and do the things that they're trained and educated to do. And I think perhaps
For nurses, a lot of fear is around the fact that when decisions about AI are being made in institutions where they're employed, they're brought in after the majority of the decisions about that are made, not on their front end where they could say, all right, let's really sit down and talk about how it is we work, how it is we function, whether or not, you know, let us share our
points of view and our experience so we can make the most informed decision. And I feel like it's insane that it's 2024 and we're still talking about nurses and nursing leadership not being at the table at the right moment when these decisions are being made. We got to get them. I don't. I think part of it, this is just, you know, me kind of with like where I sit.
Cara Lunsford (21:27.672)
What do you think that is?
Antoinette Thomas (21:37.38)
at Microsoft and the ability to be involved in these very high level strategic discussions is we have to equip nurses with the ability to better articulate a business plan. Not just like, hey, we have this much budget and we want to spend money, but a business plan. So like if they have an idea about how to use something or they have an idea about something that's being.
Positioned with them that they feel is not a good idea like put together all the data around that put together a business plan Be able to articulate that to the CFO the CEO the COO and say this is why I'm saying Asking you for something or this is why I'm saying no, so that's like one big thing. The other thing is that nurses are not
we can't bill for our services. We are looked at as like a charge center in the hospital. So when people are making decisions, maybe that is a bias that they have in their mind of not inviting the nursing leadership to the table. And decisions are made and budgets are created and they're then pushed off onto the CNO. So those are just a couple of thoughts that I have.
Cara Lunsford (22:56.312)
Are you familiar with the Commission for Nursery and Birthsmen and Rebecca Love and everything? Yes. So I interviewed her. I love, I love her, but I've known her for years, but I love her. Love her. Yeah. So, so you're familiar and cause that your second point addresses exactly what she's talking about.
Antoinette Thomas (22:59.556)
Yes, yes I know Rebecca.
She's great.
Mm -hmm.
Antoinette Thomas (23:12.292)
Yes.
Antoinette Thomas (23:18.18)
Yes. And I think it's going to take a long time for things, for that to change. But what Rebecca's doing, she's doing a lot of work in that area. And then she's also working to get nursing identified as a STEM profession, which I think is also, is so important.
Cara Lunsford (23:36.856)
Yes.
She's so cool. She's such a cool person. Yeah, so I completely agree with you. And I also wanted to say for those of you nurses that are listening to this and saying, well, how do I, I don't have time to write a business plan. Let me just tell you, you can use AI for that. So I wish, you know, I actually,
Antoinette Thomas (23:41.764)
Mm -hmm.
Antoinette Thomas (23:59.78)
You can use AI for that.
Cara Lunsford (24:08.088)
we make business cases sometimes even at the corporate level. So like when you come into corporate and you have an idea or you want to do something and you want money for it, you have to make a business case for that. So.
All these years, I had to write business plans from scratch. Didn't know anything, had to do basic, did do the research, had to look at other people's business plans, get examples, try to understand the flow of it and the objective nature of it and the subjective nature of it and all of this stuff, right? And then recently,
Antoinette Thomas (24:30.724)
Mm -hmm.
That's right.
Antoinette Thomas (24:51.472)
I'm going to go ahead and close the video.
Cara Lunsford (24:52.536)
I had an idea and I was like, okay, well, I'm gonna write a business case for this. I think I could use chat GPT for this. I type it in and I sat back and I went, my goodness. Like what I could have done if I had had this years ago. How much time I would have spent, how many hours pouring over.
Antoinette Thomas (25:00.452)
Yes.
Antoinette Thomas (25:07.332)
Right? My life has just been changed.
Antoinette Thomas (25:12.548)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
I know.
Cara Lunsford (25:22.008)
And look, you know, I learned a lot doing all of that. I, you know, I also, I think all of what I did helped me to know what to put into chat GPT. Like, because, you know, what you put in matters. how I put that information into chat GPT, I got a really, really good business case out of it.
Antoinette Thomas (25:34.084)
Yes.
Cara Lunsford (25:46.904)
But that's something that you guys can consider, y 'all can consider, when you're trying to get your point across and you want to be heard. Because I think that that's exactly the point, Antoinette.
Antoinette Thomas (26:00.868)
Yes.
Yes, it is. And I think that if we take the fear out of AI and how it's going, the fear about how it's going to affect you and actually use AI to empower people to think differently, like you made such an important point of like how to ask chat GPT or GPT 4 .0 now questions. And this is where, you know,
sitting down, empowering yourself and thinking about those prompts. Like how am I going to get the most, because at the end of the day, GPT 4 .0 is smart. But you know, it's sitting over, it's smart. It's sitting over a corpus of data. So that corpus of data is either the World Wide Web data, or that's your organization's data if they are allowing the use of things like GPT or in
Cara Lunsford (26:37.336)
Mm -hmm.
Cara Lunsford (26:46.136)
It is smart.
Antoinette Thomas (27:01.444)
Microsoft world, you know, our co -pilot capabilities. But like understanding, I think this is another big problem too, is that we have a skilling and knowledge problem around AI. And we're trying to figure out whose responsibility is it to empower nurses or nursing students, whether that's through, you know, your professional training about what these tools are.
Cara Lunsford (27:06.36)
love.
Antoinette Thomas (27:30.18)
You don't have to go in the weeds. You don't have to understand all the complexities of large language models, Kara, but you have to understand the basics of how these things work. And then I think the more they would understand it, the less afraid that they would be. So.
Cara Lunsford (27:47.032)
You have to also be willing to be curious, right? Like there's this curiosity aspect of it where, look, even if you're by yourself, don't tell anybody you're doing it, okay? Just get the chat GPT, get it on your phone, get the app. I got it so early on that I think I paid the $99, the one time $99, and then I never have to pay again and I just get all of the updates because I know, I know.
Antoinette Thomas (27:58.052)
Yeah.
Antoinette Thomas (28:02.916)
That's right.
Antoinette Thomas (28:12.036)
You're lucky girl.
Cara Lunsford (28:15.352)
But see, that's like being early adoption, right? Like that is not being afraid and going, I need to know what this thing is. Like I gotta get in there, see what it's about, drop some money into it and say, I'm gonna invest in this and be curious. Like it's okay, it's not gonna bite you, I promise. And it's not.
Antoinette Thomas (28:17.988)
Mm -hmm.
Antoinette Thomas (28:24.26)
Yes.
Antoinette Thomas (28:33.86)
Mm -hmm.
Antoinette Thomas (28:39.684)
It's not.
Cara Lunsford (28:42.232)
And the more you play around with it, the more you will see the value. I had it solve a marital dispute.
Antoinette Thomas (28:53.764)
Mm -hmm.
Cara Lunsford (28:54.456)
I'm not kidding. Literally dropped in a chat exchange.
I'll tell you that I found out I was wrong.
So it's not always going to tell you what you want to hear because I was like, this isn't right.
Antoinette Thomas (29:13.476)
Yeah.
Yeah, I know, I know. I will on occasion ask it like existential type of questions, you know, like why not?
Cara Lunsford (29:24.696)
Yeah. Well, yeah, because you can get it's thought provoking, right? And, and that's what you can explore with it. You say like, look, this is kind of a non biased per se, you know, view of things. You, when I was using it for the chat exchange, I was kind of like, I'm not
Antoinette Thomas (29:31.716)
Mm -hmm.
Antoinette Thomas (29:45.252)
Right.
Cara Lunsford (29:50.52)
to go to our therapist and ask about this. I'm going to ask Chad GPT because our therapist is going to be like, Don was right about this thing and I don't want to hear it.
Antoinette Thomas (29:54.18)
You
I wish I could see Dawn in the background right now. This is so precious.
Cara Lunsford (30:05.312)
she's not even here. She's going to hear this later. And it's so, but it's like, you know, it's being really authentic and being really vulnerable. But sometimes you can play around with these things because I will tell you, like, I think everybody has been afraid of things. They were afraid of the internet. They were afraid of, you know, going from a typewriter to a computer. They were...
Antoinette Thomas (30:06.564)
hahahaha
Cara Lunsford (30:34.424)
afraid of giving up their flip phone for an iPhone or a smartphone.
Antoinette Thomas (30:40.132)
Yeah, or they were afraid. Remember in the pandemic when we did not know what was going on, we had no access to information. We certainly didn't have a way to query GPT and ask it questions to kind of like, I always like look at compelling events in healthcare. That was definitely a compelling event for so many reasons, but
You know, along the lines of this conversation about AI and healthcare, I think another thing that I would ask our audience to think about is the compelling event that's only about six years away, and that's the year 2030. And 2030 is important because every boomer will have aged out. So we will have so many people requiring care and we don't have enough physical
people to do to deliver the care. And so it's an exciting and critical time for our industry because we are going to have to reimagine how we're going to be delivering some of this care. Health care will be reinvented. And, you know, thinking about that in terms of the number of people that we have, like the pipeline's not getting full because we're also people are having less children.
So we're not repopulating the generation ahead of us. AI has to play a role in helping us prioritize the needs of the people that need care. It'll help us with how we deliver virtual care or care in the home. Understanding how maybe retail health can form new business relationships with healthcare systems to offset some of the primary care. There's a whole slew, a whole list of things.
Cara Lunsford (32:32.792)
Mm -hmm.
Antoinette Thomas (32:35.396)
that that compelling event is gonna bring us.
Cara Lunsford (32:38.68)
And imagine like how wonderful it would be, right? I had this conversation with my mother -in -law the other day and she's 93. And she's very like, she just stopped playing volleyball three years ago. But she's just, she's amazing. Yeah, yeah, she's amazing. But you know, she's, she has an iPhone, she texts, she's on it.
Antoinette Thomas (32:49.124)
my.
Antoinette Thomas (32:54.532)
Yeah. That's goals.
Cara Lunsford (33:06.872)
Instagram, she does all the things. She has stayed up with technology, which is amazing. And I said to her, I'm like, you know, mom, sometimes you think, you know, when you get into a doctor's office and the doctor's like sitting there in front of the computer and you're, you're kind of upset that he or she hasn't had a chance to really look at your file or really understand your, your past medical history and
you immediately lose confidence when they ask you about things that you're like, well, don't you know I had a mastectomy or something like that. She didn't, but like it's saying it's like, no, I don't have breasts anymore or something like that. And that personalization, right? And you, cause you immediately lose confidence in your healthcare provider right off the bat. And what if you could
Antoinette Thomas (33:45.028)
Yes.
Antoinette Thomas (33:50.212)
Yeah, that personalization.
Antoinette Thomas (33:58.18)
Right.
Cara Lunsford (34:02.616)
as a healthcare provider, be able to say, okay, before I go in and see Ms. Ventour, please catch me up on her relevant past medical history and why she's here today and how it's, so that I can walk in the room and have an intelligent conversation and make her feel confident that I understand.
where she's been and not recommend things that are not going to be helpful to her. And that is something that AI could do for you.
Antoinette Thomas (34:45.572)
Yeah, yeah. In my role, so my official role at Microsoft is as the Chief Experience Officer. So I really focus on the consumer experience in health and health care. And we, we on purpose focus on health and health care. And we use those terms together because you're a patient when you're inside the four walls of a hospital receiving some sort of care. But
All other times you're a consumer and you're trying to stay healthy. You want to know how to stay healthy. So a big thing that we talk about in the experience space, Kara, is how AI can be used to create those longitudinal personalized experiences. How the person can be an N of one and be known.
every time they pick up the phone to call, whether it's the Cleveland Clinic or CVS Health or whatever, like the N of one, know me. And then also like there is, I'm not sure if you've ever had anyone on talking about behavioral nudging. So it's essentially a way, it's all AI in the background, but it can.
Nudge you meaning send you text or a voice message or an email or a message to your portal about health related activities or it can be aligned to a specific disease care management program where it'll give you the little nudges. Did you do this today or think about this or you know your medication if you take it on time will do this. So nudging is really coming up as a way to kind of
you know, really emphasize that N of one and produce the outcomes that we really need to move the needle in healthcare.
Cara Lunsford (36:40.12)
Yeah, and why is it that people are so much more accepting or why they embrace
Antoinette Thomas (36:52.324)
Yeah.
Cara Lunsford (36:54.296)
like technology telling them what to do as opposed to like if I were to yeah if I were to nudge my wife or nudge my mother about something right they're like they're like stop nagging me
Antoinette Thomas (36:57.028)
versus the person.
Antoinette Thomas (37:05.604)
Yeah, because behind. Yeah, yeah, or they just, you know, some everyone has a different behavioral profile to and how they interact with people or knowledge or information. But these nudges behind them, there's a lot of social science and behavioral science that's built into the large language model. So the more data that that LLM takes in, and can understand about how people behave,
the more distinct and personal and on point that nudge can get. So yeah, and it's not coming from a person. It's objective, yeah.
Cara Lunsford (37:47.128)
Which is so interesting, right? It's completely objective. There's no ulterior motive or even as, as, you know, because as much as you would like to think that people will assume positive intent, they don't. No, they don't. And, and, and they are like, yeah, they're judging me. They're shaming me.
Antoinette Thomas (38:07.78)
They don't.
And this is why health care is hard.
Antoinette Thomas (38:15.94)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Cara Lunsford (38:17.56)
there, I feel, I now I feel bad because you're very slim and you're telling me to watch my calories or that you're telling me to look at my diet. Well, how dare you because you don't understand how I feel because you're thin or you're slender. Right. And so there's this like really interesting
Antoinette Thomas (38:26.308)
Yes.
Antoinette Thomas (38:35.652)
Yes.
Cara Lunsford (38:45.496)
It's, this is why if I went back to school, I would be like a sociology major. I say this all the time, that I am fascinated by people and why they respond the way they do and why they do what they do. And, and this is, this is why I think it's really interesting. And I do think that people are going to somehow develop a certain emotional relationship with AI.
Antoinette Thomas (38:57.398)
Yes.
Antoinette Thomas (39:11.46)
I am with you.
Cara Lunsford (39:14.072)
Yeah, it's almost because I catch myself in it. I say please and thank you to AI when I'm asking for something or I'll say, would you mind rephrasing that for me? Or, you know, I find myself being intentionally polite.
Antoinette Thomas (39:32.356)
Correct, correct. And reformatting your prompts and your questions. It would be like trying to butter up somebody that you might not have the best relationship with or that you're trying to get information from. It's the same thing and I do it all the time also. And I think that we are, I'm with you. We're gonna see more and more and more of that.
And I would love to see that. Like I would love to see nurses be able to interact with AI in real time as they're practicing or have the AI deliver them something and you know, pieces of information that help them make their decision and then see them interact back with it and provide it feedback. Like, you know, that's, that's the future.
Cara Lunsford (40:25.08)
Mm -hmm.
Antoinette Thomas (40:27.3)
And I think we will see that happen, but agree, like, everyone's going to learn to behave differently.
Cara Lunsford (40:35.288)
Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be really, really interesting to see how this evolves.
Antoinette Thomas (40:36.324)
And I just.
Antoinette Thomas (40:40.484)
Yeah, I just had a great conversation with one of the nursing leaders from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. And your peds and you know, like how amazing that institution is. They're very, they, so do I. They lean in hard. They want to be first adopters. They want to fail forward. They're innovative, all that stuff. And she said to me that one of her goals
Cara Lunsford (40:53.88)
Love chop, love chop. Yep.
Antoinette Thomas (41:10.116)
is to change the culture of nursing at CHOP, which is already a great culture, but change the nursing where informatics and data is not something someone else does. It is part of who you are as a nurse at CHOP. And I was like, that is gold. Like, just get it ingrained in their mindset from the time that they start their employment or, you know, change the culture for the nurses who have been there for a while. But
I think that that's a very cogent statement because she's trying to prepare them for the future and you know data and informatics is not something someone else does. I love it.
Cara Lunsford (41:52.792)
Yeah, and it's so true. And when you can start to enjoy it for what it does for you in your own personal life, and then start to see what it can do for your family, for the people you care about, being like, gosh, you know what? I don't have to be the nag anymore. I just get to be the daughter, or I just get to be
Antoinette Thomas (42:02.66)
Mm -hmm.
Cara Lunsford (42:20.696)
something else is nudging. And I can have a conversation about that with my mom or with my sister. I can say, well, you know, what is it nudging you to do? Or what is it saying? What are these prompts you're getting? And let's talk about it as a nurse, as a daughter, like as a sister. And I feel like that's freedom.
Antoinette Thomas (42:23.428)
Yeah.
Antoinette Thomas (42:46.852)
It is freedom. And I think about it in terms like I have my youngest brother who'll be 45. He's on the spectrum and he's, you know, he's independent. He lives on his own. He's worked in a factory for 26 years. But when my mom goes.
you know, he's got some health problems and when she goes, I will be the person in charge of making sure that everything about his health and the care that he needs is in order. But I think about him in terms because he has a smartphone and he gets into his portal and he takes what his doctor says so seriously. But I think about that in terms of like those nudges for him.
And just those daily reminders or those gentle reminders where it's not his mother or one of his siblings nagging on him or him feeling like they're constantly, like he's a grown man, you know? And I think that there's just so much potential across all types of abilities for what AI can do for the patients.
Cara Lunsford (43:43.288)
Yeah.
Cara Lunsford (44:00.152)
Yes. Yes. Absolutely. I think that that autonomy and that feeling of independence, I know that my mother -in -law loves to feel independent. The more independent she can feel, the better. Right. And I look forward to the day that self -driving cars are, you know, just the common thing because imagine like how much more independence.
Antoinette Thomas (44:29.412)
Yeah.
Cara Lunsford (44:30.264)
someone could have if they're like, look, I don't have to stop driving. My car just drives me to the store and back because people are afraid older people are sometimes afraid of things like, you know, Uber, they don't want to get in a car with somebody they don't know, or they feel, you know, they don't feel comfortable, they want to have their car. And so
Antoinette Thomas (44:46.212)
Yeah, that's right.
Cara Lunsford (44:54.52)
I'm really looking forward to these advancements in technology because I think it is going to provide people with a better quality of life. And that is going to allow them to just move through the world in a way that they can really thrive, like through their years, if they live to be 100.
Antoinette Thomas (45:12.452)
Yes.
Cara Lunsford (45:21.752)
It's like, you know, they could really be thriving. And that to me is exciting. And it outweighs any of the potential scary things of AI. Because if you look at everything that we have, I could give you a list of pros and a list of cons.
Antoinette Thomas (45:42.5)
Yeah, there's bad actors in everything. There's bad in everything.
Cara Lunsford (45:46.424)
In everything, in everything, but you don't not do it, right? Just because there's these people that abuse it or they misuse it or they, it doesn't mean that we don't use those, those new pieces of technology, right? So yeah.
Antoinette Thomas (45:51.844)
Right.
Antoinette Thomas (46:05.732)
Yeah. I mean, when, when we first announced our partnership with open AI at Microsoft, it was like, there were very few people in our company that knew that was happening only the, you know, the people that had to be in the know. So when that whole thing came about, it was a very exciting time.
and things started to move so quickly, but it's also like, you feel like, my gosh, what's going to happen next. And then, you know, all of the, the talk, people should slow down on AI and I don't know if this is a good idea. And, you know, and our CEO who is just like, I feel like there are very few CEOs in the history of our country that will be as impactful or as inspirational as Satya Nadella. He's just.
He is a futuristic thinker and he's a very empathetic man. And he said, we have a responsibility in our world right now. And I understand what everyone is saying and nothing that they're saying is inaccurate. There is potential for negative, but we have to look at what we need to step up and do to help the world. And that just like put me on.
the forward track. I'm like, he's absolutely right. Like if he's not scared, I'm not going to be scared.
Cara Lunsford (47:32.344)
I love that. Yeah. What a wonderful thing for him to do as a leader. And because I'm going to also add in here that something that is really important to nurses, nurse practitioners, to doctors, to healthcare professionals, health equity, right? And there are people in certain areas of the country, of the world.
Antoinette Thomas (47:52.516)
Yes.
Cara Lunsford (48:00.248)
that do not have access to the same level of care as people in other major metropolitan areas, this and that, but why should they get less quality, right? Why should they not be getting poor outcomes? Additionally, if you're concerned about bias, right? And if someone is feeding information into open AI,
Antoinette Thomas (48:12.228)
Yeah. Or poor outcomes.
Cara Lunsford (48:29.048)
to spit out some potential diagnosis and rule out this, rule out that. Guess what? Open AI is not going to be biased about who you are. Where do you fall socially, from a social economic standpoint or psychosocial or what race are you? Are you a person of color? Are you not?
That is all not going to be a factor. And then imagine if your doctor gets a whole rundown of you need to rule out these 10 things or these five things. Well, now the doctor has a responsibility or the professional has a responsibility to take those things into consideration. Otherwise, it might be considered negligence or malpractice.
Antoinette Thomas (49:25.22)
Yeah.
Cara Lunsford (49:25.24)
Right? To say you were fed this information and you didn't do it. Right?
Antoinette Thomas (49:30.34)
Health equity is a pinnacle topic for AI and I think.
whether you're a nurse, any type of clinician, any type of thinker, I think, you know, there are going to be future roles that will be made around data science, making sure that we don't widen the gap between haves and have nots. We already have that problem and we can use AI as a tool to help solve that.
And then another point on the equity piece, I'm so glad you brought this up, is how AI can be used to
build, create new treatments or cures because right now like a lot of the research.
Cara Lunsford (50:19.64)
Hold on one second.
Cara Lunsford (50:23.768)
second it was trying to is saying it's trying to reconnect to
Antoinette Thomas (50:29.38)
It's okay. Yeah. So another important tool, another important use of AI and health equity is understanding how we can create more precision treatments for certain populations. A lot of the research that's done now is really done on limited data sets. So most of the research for pharma or therapeutics is done
Cara Lunsford (50:29.624)
Say it again.
Antoinette Thomas (50:58.02)
on datasets that are mainly white males. So we're not able to develop treatments that are as specific as they can be.
Cara Lunsford (51:07.32)
your Wi -Fi Tony? How's your Wi -Fi?
Antoinette Thomas (51:12.772)
Yeah, hold on here.
Cara Lunsford (51:15.608)
me how your Wi -Fi is because yeah mine says I have like full bars but I want to
Antoinette Thomas (51:17.476)
I'm on 5G. You're blurring a little bit. You're pixelating.
Cara Lunsford (51:25.112)
Let me see if I can just, I'm gonna reconnect in a second.
Antoinette Thomas (51:30.179)
It's okay.
And I do have a hard stop at one.
Cara Lunsford (51:47.8)
Is that good or bad?
I think that's worse. Hold on a second.
Antoinette Thomas (51:54.02)
You're still a little pixelated, but your sound is coming through.
Cara Lunsford (51:57.24)
Let's see.
How about now? Tell me if that's any better. Okay, okay, I'm not sure what that was, but it like, yeah, all of a sudden, like just all of a sudden it started to say like, we're having an unstable internet. And I'm like, I'm like, what is going on here? So, okay, go back because this is really, really important information. And I was like, no, I have to get all of this because.
Antoinette Thomas (52:05.188)
It's better. It's better. Yeah.
Antoinette Thomas (52:14.596)
You're filtering.
Antoinette Thomas (52:20.484)
Yeah.
Cara Lunsford (52:25.624)
You were talking about data sets and things like that, but it was kind of like breaking up. So let's just go back to where you were starting from that thought.
Antoinette Thomas (52:29.348)
Yeah, right. We were talking about the importance of AI and health equity. We've obviously talked about how we deliver care to different groups of people, but something so very important, and we haven't spent a lot of time talking about it in this hour, is how AI can be used to develop more precise or precision treatment, so precision medicine.
And most of the research that's done today is done on data sets that are very rich with white males as the subjects or the data sets. And so the treatments aren't as targeted as they could be. And so AI is going to kind of like liberate some of the data or help us understand where we have gaps in data and we need to do more research. For example,
African American females, infant and maternal mortality is one area. Also African American males, heart disease, chronic kidney disease. I could go on and on and on, but it's going to help us develop more precision treatments and develop them more quickly and also move from treatment to cure and eliminate a lot of human suffering. So that is really
an area that I like to pay attention to because I feel like it's so important. We're not helping anybody if we're not really understanding how their body works and what type of treatments would be best for them.
Cara Lunsford (54:05.08)
Yeah.
Cara Lunsford (54:13.592)
Yeah. Yeah. And where's the...
And I'll ask you this really quick. I know we're kind of at the, almost at the top of our hour, but one of the things that's really interesting to me is, is, you know, where we make our investments as a country, oftentimes are tied to some sort of monetary fiscal advantage to some extent. And so we tend to see investments where,
you know, where the money is gonna have a nice return. So how do we see making these advances? Like what's in it for us kind of thing? Like the people who are at the, we know what's in it at the end for the recipients, right? For the consumers. That seems pretty obvious, right? What, you know, we've kind of talked about like what's in it for the healthcare professionals.
what's in it for them. And then what's in it for these, because we are a capitalist country, okay? And if you have time, I have time, so just feel free to answer. Yeah.
Antoinette Thomas (55:28.708)
Yes, this is a great question. Yep. Yep. I have a couple minutes. So in healthcare, our entire healthcare business is built on reimbursements to the payers. Our entire healthcare system is designed right now toward or around the largest payer in our country, which is
Medicare. We need a system, we need to support those receiving Medicare and understand like hospitals are paid on taking care of Medicare patients and that's the meat and bones of what they do but we have other generations where we need to build and design a healthcare system that's suitable for everyone that allows our payers to make the money and allows hospitals to make money.
money. But in in healthcare 2 .0 what we really need to do where I think AI can help us so much Kara is understanding that we need to keep people healthier. We need to figure out a way we need to bring primary care back. So we we do.
it's we are in desperate need of it because we can't continue to scale to the level of chronic illness that we have in this country. So primary, we need to figure out a way that primary care can make the payers money and can make the healthcare systems money, the retail health money and satisfy what the majority of people need.
Like if you look at what the younger generations want out of their healthcare experience, they want a relationship with a provider, but they also want quick and easy access. So they're utilizing a little bit of retail health. They want tips on how to be healthy. They want mental health care. We've got to figure all of that out and find a win -win in our capitalistic society, just as you said, because we're not going to get rid of the structure that we have. We can't tear it down and start.
Antoinette Thomas (57:46.436)
back from scratch. We have to figure out a way to reinvent what we have.
Cara Lunsford (57:51.928)
Yeah, well said. Well said. Sometimes as I'm talking to somebody and the interview is unfolding, I get these thoughts that come into my head and I'm like, I have to ask her about this. I have to ask her about that. I have to ask her about this.
Antoinette Thomas (58:02.692)
I love it.
Antoinette Thomas (58:06.724)
You're an excellent, you are an excellent communicator and you ask very good questions.
Cara Lunsford (58:14.392)
thank you, Tony. Thank you. Well, I enjoy it. This is like probably one of my favorite parts of my job. It's a small part of what I get to do at Relias and NNURSE .com, but I really, really enjoy it. And so I'm just so grateful that you came on and shared your time with me today. I can't wait to meet you in person.
Antoinette Thomas (58:16.068)
Very thoughtful.
Antoinette Thomas (58:38.564)
I know, I know. I hope that this is a start of a more developing relationship because I really wanna evangelize the work that you're doing. And I'd love to bring some other nursing thought leaders that I work with to the table to like introduce you to them.
Cara Lunsford (58:51.672)
Absolutely. I would love that. I would love that. Please feel free to send anyone over and let's reconnect soon and let's brainstorm and think of other ways to help bring this healthcare 2 .0 to fruition.
Antoinette Thomas (59:03.204)
Let's do it.
Antoinette Thomas (59:08.58)
Let's do it. Let's do it. And thank your lovely wife for me. Have a great day.
Cara Lunsford (59:10.616)
Thanks, Tony.
Cara Lunsford (59:14.648)
I will you too. Bye.
Antoinette Thomas (59:16.58)
Bye -bye.
Cara Lunsford (59:29.112)
gonna do a very very quick intro one second I'm not gonna close out of here just yet because I realized that
I'm gonna just, I don't think I said the whole, well, hello, Antoinette Thomas. So I'm gonna do that now. Okay, all right, we ready? Well, hello there, Antoinette Thomas. I'm so, I don't know, that didn't come out right. Okay, let's try that again. Well, hello, Antoinette Thomas. It's such a pleasure to see you.
Cara Lunsford (01:00:16.76)
Okay, let's see if that works and we're gonna go. Okay, bye.
