Our health practice works with clients at the intersection of AI, innovation, and healthcare. Therefore, we’re constantly monitoring the media for trends in this space and reading the latest coverage on how this technology is impacting the healthcare industry.
Here’s our analysis of how some top healthcare reporters that cover AI.
Casey Ross, National Technology Correspondent, STAT
Casey’s reporting examines the use of artificial intelligence in medicine and its underlying questions of safety, fairness, ethics and privacy. He also explores the underlying tensions between progress, privacy and profit.
His investigative series on the use of AI to deny care within Medicare Advantage (which won a Batten Medal and was recognized as a Pulitzer finalist) examines United Healthcare’s use of AI to deny crucial medical care.
The "Denied by AI" series, led by Casey Ross and Bob Herman, began with a story delving into how Medicare Advantage plans use algorithms to cut off care for seniors in need. The reporting continued with a look at internal dissent at UnitedHealth over a popular Medicare Advantage algorithm leading to denied care. Further investigation led to a story on how UnitedHealth pushed employees to follow the algorithm to cut off Medicare patients’ rehab care. Finally, Casey and Bob uncovered secret rules to restrict rehab care for seriously ill MA patients. The series warns of the dangers of data-driven decision-making when it’s used to make consequential decisions about patient treatment.
Casey also frequently examines AI frameworks and ethics, through his story on Microsoft setting AI standards (while also selling AI products), federal regulators teaming up with the healthcare industry to set standards, and how a Biden administration order aims to develop a plan for regulating AI tools already widely in use within hospitals, insurance companies, and other health-related businesses. The theme of AI regulation in healthcare has continued to be a hot topic in the media, and Casey has contributed excellent analysis to this discussion.
He deciphers hype from reality in AI, including current challenges the industry faces in its work to adopt the technology. That can be demonstrated through this story on how GenAI needs additional training to save clinicians from time-consuming administrative work, challenges faced with Dr. Watson and what that means for other market players, the challenges that hospitals face to validate AI-generated clinical summaries and the limits of AI for drug discovery and treating cancer. Compared to other reporters who cover AI in healthcare, Casey’s coverage often relies on investigative reports.
If offering Casey a story idea on AI, make sure you have an actual use case that’s ready to be analyzed from all angles.
Gabriel Perna, Digital Health Editor, Modern Healthcare
Gabe Perna has written extensively about the cross-section of healthcare, business, and technology throughout his career. As Digital Health Editor at Modern Healthcare, he leads up the publication’s healthcare technology coverage (along with reporter Brock Turner).
Gabe has an optimistic outlook at AI in healthcare – focusing on the potential of AI, as evidenced through his coverage on how AI tools could help break down language barriers, the potential for AI reducing violence on clinicians, how AI-enabled speech analysis could diagnose and treat disease and how GenAI could detect social determinants of health. This isn’t blind optimism, however – Gabe includes perspectives and cautions in nearly all of his AI stories, noting that there’s more work to be done, we need to have better data, and the industry can’t yet fully rely on AI.
He also looks into companies’ AI ambitions, such as NVIDIA’s goals for AI in healthcare, as well as Google’s AI ambitions for Fitbit.
Like Mario, AI regulation is another key topic. He’s broken down how healthcare AI is regulated by the FDA, HHS and state laws, and the increasing responsibility that the FDA is taking on in digital health.
Because most of Modern Healthcare’s coverage is on provider and payer news, policy, M&A and other non-technical analysis, it can be difficult to break into the publication’s digital health section. Focus on real-world examples and the actual work that's being done, and to avoid pitching medtech stories.
Chrissy Farr, Editorial Lead, Second Opinion
Technically, Chrissy Farr isn’t a reporter but she is the author of a popular Substack, and has journalism roots from her days reporting on health tech at CNBC and Fast Company (with previous tech reporting stints at VentureBeat and Reuters).
Chrissy has a deep understanding of healthcare given her experience as an investor and a journalist, and aims to be a health tech “truther” – sifting through the noise and helping others navigate what’s really going on in health tech.
One interesting take that I haven’t seen covered in a lot of other media outlets is the idea that AI will force doctors to be more human. She notes that as AI becomes more prevalent, the biggest shift will be that we’ll see more training for doctors to be empathic communicators. Doctors should be leaning into what makes them human, rather than trying to beat AI at its inhuman data analysis skills (which is what it does best).
Of course, Chrissy also covers the VC landscape for AI and how this emerging technology is creating a lot of “buzzy” AI startups competing for investor dollars. However, when you look under the hood, there’s no real AI happening. Another trend from Chrissy’s experience is that the companies honest enough to admit they’re not using AI get passed over for funding, and thus the flywheel effect continues. She predicts that in a few years, a lot of this AI investment will slow, especially once we get excited about whatever the next big thing is.
Note: if you’re a PR professional, hold on reaching out. It’s best to have executives connect with Chrissy directly. Chrissy also recently shared the news that she’s looking for Second Opinion co-authors, so if you’re a thought leader in any of the following topics, consider sending a note:
- Revenue cycle management and payments
- Pharmacy
- Behavioral health
- Venture and investing
- AI & machine learning
- Women’s health
AI in healthcare is ever-evolving – with new innovations hitting the market every day, the VC landscape shifting, new regulations being proposed to help oversee this technology, and more. Reach out to learn more about how Highwire can help you navigate the health AI media landscape.
