The Augmented Physician: How AI is Transforming Clinical Practice and What Every Healthcare Leader Must Know

For decades, we've been promised that technology would give physicians more time with patients. Instead, we delivered EHRs that doubled the documentation burden and decision support tools that fire alerts no one reads. Now AI, real AI, not rule-based algorithms dressed in marketing language, is finally delivering on that promise. Ambient documentation that captures the clinical encounter. Predictive models that identify patients who need attention before they experience a crisis. Clinical decision support that actually supports clinical decisions. But here's what the vendors won't tell you: implementation is everything. The same AI that transforms one organization creates chaos in another. The difference isn't the technology; it's understanding how AI fits into clinical workflows, where it helps and where it harms, and how to build the physician trust required for adoption. Dr. Hamed Abbaszadegan brings a perspective no AI vendor can match: he's both a practicing internist who understands the realities of patient care and a clinical informaticist who has spent his career at the intersection of medicine and technology. As the former director of the Clinical Informatics Fellowship at the University of Arizona and a current physician executive shaping AI-powered clinical decision support for hundreds of hospitals, he has witnessed—and guided—the transformation firsthand. This session cuts through the hype to deliver what healthcare leaders and clinicians actually need: a clinician 's-eye view of AI that works.