October 13, 2025 • 7 mins
This episode recorded live at the 10th Annual Health IT + Digital Health + RCM Annual Meeting features Clara Lin, Chief Medical Information Officer, Seattle Children's. Dr. Lin shares how her organization is integrating AI responsibly through strong governance, patient engagement, and operational alignment to enhance both clinical workflows and patient care.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Philips is a health tech leader focused on
innovation that improves the health and well-being of
people. Our health care technology and informatics solutions
help care teams diagnose, treat, and manage more
patients with greater precision, speed, and confidence across
the care journey. With Philips, clinicians are empowered
with streamlined insights in the moments that matter
(00:21):
for every patient. Better care for more people.
Philips.
This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Healthcare
Podcast, and we are recording live at the
twenty twenty five Health IT Digital Health and
RCM conference.
I'm currently joined by Clara Lynn, who is
the chief medical information officer at Seattle Children's.
(00:42):
So, Clara, thanks for being here. And let's
get started by having you share a little
bit more about yourself and your work in
health care. Sure. Thank you for having me.
My name is Clara. I am an internal
medicine and pediatrics trained primary care physician. I
still see patients,
at out of Seattle Children's, and I'm also
my daytime job is our, chief medical information
(01:02):
officer. And so I oversee our informatics team,
our digital health team, and our training team
in looking at how health IT and the
clinician workflows and our patient engagement,
intersect with each other. Wonderful. Well, thank you
for taking the time to be here. And
let's start our conversation
talking about AI since that is such a
hot topic. So nearly half of medical practices
(01:23):
have reported using AI in some capacity in
the last year, and it remains a key
topic for health IT leaders. From your perspective,
what are the use cases that are making
a difference right now, and how are you
leveraging them in your organization?
Yeah. Our
you know, we are very early, I think,
as is everyone in the in the broadening
of our AI portfolio,
(01:43):
journey right now. And, we have a pretty
large portfolio of AI applications,
at Seattle Children's. And I think across the
conference today at at Becker's, we're going to
hear a lot about ambient AI, and that
is ambient both in the sort of audio
space where it helps you produce,
clinical documentation and other, important clinical, decision support
even,
(02:06):
in
your EHR, but also Ambien in a video
space. I think that would be a really
cool use case moving forward, and I think
how we leverage Ambien, both audio and video,
to then do some real time event capturing
and real time event prediction, I think that
would be a really
great use case with that can deliver some
real value in the future,
in the near future. And I think what
(02:27):
we've learned at Seattle Children's over the first
two years of really doing diving and investing
into AI is trying to realize the clinical
value,
of some of our use cases. And so
finding the use cases that are going to
be the highest yield,
in the early years is was a really
big focus for us.
Absolutely. And as virtual care expands from AI
(02:48):
enabled tools and remote monitoring to broader
digital health platforms, introducing new technology always brings
challenges. So what advice do you have for
leaders navigating everything from governance to patient engagement?
And can you share an example of how
your organization has balanced innovation with operational constraints?
Yeah. So I'm gonna touch on the first,
point real quick that you made on the
(03:10):
governance and the patient engagement.
And I think governance for AI use cases,
particularly new ones, are extremely important to ensure
that you're practicing AI ethically and responsibly and
also in alignment with your organization's priorities, so
and strategy so that you're investing accurately.
But also
patient experience, obviously, is a really important part
(03:30):
of that. And I don't think
they that those two things, patient engagement, patient
experience, and governance should be separate. And in
fact, at Seattle Children's, we've interwoven those two
things integrated those two things directly together. So
patient experience
representatives sit on our AI governance structure,
and we also make sure that that is
called out specifically that as as any AI
(03:51):
use case is being developed at Seattle Children's,
we provide the the governance board provides the
advice of how to gather,
patient,
input and feedback and also things like consent
and how they patients can opt in or
opt out. Those types of conversations are actively
happening in our governance structure,
for all the AI use cases. So I
think that that is a really important thing,
(04:12):
I think, for for a lot of leaders
that are trying to navigate, this really complicated
landscape right now. And then I think your
second question was how do we balance innovation
with our operational constraint? The way that we've
approached it at Seattle Children's over the years,
it's kind of evolved a little bit. And
I really like the way where it's at
right now where,
we are thinking about AI as part of
our strategy and as part of our operational
(04:33):
work all moving forward. So it's all part
of the budget for budgeting for the operational
team. So what they're thinking about rolling out
a new feature, they would budget into it
the time and the money that are needed
to potentially
explore AI solutions there.
But at the same time, other than sort
of designing it in directly into your OpEx,
budget, you also have to think about maybe
(04:55):
investing in a distinct, discrete bucket of dollars
and time and effort that is just for
you to take risk and for you to
innovate and be creative and do really cool
things. So that way you can stay on
the bleeding edge of the technology as a,
as an organization. So that's how we've chosen
to do, and I think so far it's
really served us well.
And how are you seeing recent legislation, both
(05:16):
state and federal, affect health care organizations and
health care IT specifically? And have you adjusted
any strategies in response?
Yeah. That's a really great question. And I
really
love all the focus and the effort right
now that's happening in,
the legislative state space, both state and federal,
on making AI better and making AI safer,
(05:38):
faster, and even cheaper for us. And I
think recently, for example, we see that there's
been a national, at the federal level, conversation
about how we make sure that AI is
safe for our teens and our kids that
are potentially coming in contact with this technology.
I think as leaders, particularly
in the pediatric health space, we need to
make sure that we're advocating for our patients
and advocating for our patients,
(06:00):
families and providers
because we are both you know, we are
it's a dwindling, unfortunately, workforce. A lot of
people aren't as physicians myself as as physician
myself, we see that pediatric residency,
is that workforce is shrinking, and a lot
of people aren't going into pediatric, especially in
primary care.
At the same time, this pay this patient
population of the kids and their families is
(06:21):
probably the most vulnerable
patient population out there. And so as pediatric
health care leaders and organizations, we need to
make sure that we're advocating,
especially in the kind of the evolving technology
to make sure that our clinicians and our
patients are getting,
what is best for them, out of this.
And as we wrap up our conversation today,
what is your top piece of advice for
(06:43):
health care leaders as they prepare for further
advancements in technology and rising demands for care?
I think in my two years of doing
this kind of as a very big part
of my job, my big lessons learned is
to be very realistic about the return on
investment for artificial intelligence tools. I think there
are a lot of really cool technology or
really cool use cases. People are you're you're
(07:04):
gonna,
want to go for the shiny things, but
it's it's it'll it'll be important to resist
the shininess of it and really be realistic
at determining what that clinical value will be
for your organization
so that you could target your investment,
intelligently.
Wonderful. Well, Clara, thanks so much for joining
me today on the Becker's Healthcare Podcast and
(07:25):
sharing your insights. Again, we are recording live
at the Health IT Digital Health and RCM
conference. Thank you so much.
Philips is a health tech leader focused on
innovation that improves the health and well-being of
people. Our health care technology and informatics solutions
help care teams diagnose, treat, and manage more
patients with greater precision, speed, and confidence across
the care journey. With Philips, clinicians are empowered
with streamlined insights in the moments that matter
(00:21):
for every patient. Better care for more people.
Philips.
This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Healthcare
Podcast, and we are recording live at the
twenty twenty five Health IT Digital Health and
RCM conference.
I'm currently joined by Clara Lynn, who is
the chief medical information officer at Seattle Children's.
(00:42):
So, Clara, thanks for being here. And let's
get started by having you share a little
bit more about yourself and your work in
health care. Sure. Thank you for having me.
My name is Clara. I am an internal
medicine and pediatrics trained primary care physician. I
still see patients,
at out of Seattle Children's, and I'm also
my daytime job is our, chief medical information
(01:02):
officer. And so I oversee our informatics team,
our digital health team, and our training team
in looking at how health IT and the
clinician workflows and our patient engagement,
intersect with each other. Wonderful. Well, thank you
for taking the time to be here. And
let's start our conversation
talking about AI since that is such a
hot topic. So nearly half of medical practices
(01:23):
have reported using AI in some capacity in
the last year, and it remains a key
topic for health IT leaders. From your perspective,
what are the use cases that are making
a difference right now, and how are you
leveraging them in your organization?
Yeah. Our
you know, we are very early, I think,
as is everyone in the in the broadening
of our AI portfolio,
(01:43):
journey right now. And, we have a pretty
large portfolio of AI applications,
at Seattle Children's. And I think across the
conference today at at Becker's, we're going to
hear a lot about ambient AI, and that
is ambient both in the sort of audio
space where it helps you produce,
clinical documentation and other, important clinical, decision support
even,
(02:06):
in
your EHR, but also Ambien in a video
space. I think that would be a really
cool use case moving forward, and I think
how we leverage Ambien, both audio and video,
to then do some real time event capturing
and real time event prediction, I think that
would be a really
great use case with that can deliver some
real value in the future,
in the near future. And I think what
(02:27):
we've learned at Seattle Children's over the first
two years of really doing diving and investing
into AI is trying to realize the clinical
value,
of some of our use cases. And so
finding the use cases that are going to
be the highest yield,
in the early years is was a really
big focus for us.
Absolutely. And as virtual care expands from AI
(02:48):
enabled tools and remote monitoring to broader
digital health platforms, introducing new technology always brings
challenges. So what advice do you have for
leaders navigating everything from governance to patient engagement?
And can you share an example of how
your organization has balanced innovation with operational constraints?
Yeah. So I'm gonna touch on the first,
point real quick that you made on the
(03:10):
governance and the patient engagement.
And I think governance for AI use cases,
particularly new ones, are extremely important to ensure
that you're practicing AI ethically and responsibly and
also in alignment with your organization's priorities, so
and strategy so that you're investing accurately.
But also
patient experience, obviously, is a really important part
(03:30):
of that. And I don't think
they that those two things, patient engagement, patient
experience, and governance should be separate. And in
fact, at Seattle Children's, we've interwoven those two
things integrated those two things directly together. So
patient experience
representatives sit on our AI governance structure,
and we also make sure that that is
called out specifically that as as any AI
(03:51):
use case is being developed at Seattle Children's,
we provide the the governance board provides the
advice of how to gather,
patient,
input and feedback and also things like consent
and how they patients can opt in or
opt out. Those types of conversations are actively
happening in our governance structure,
for all the AI use cases. So I
think that that is a really important thing,
(04:12):
I think, for for a lot of leaders
that are trying to navigate, this really complicated
landscape right now. And then I think your
second question was how do we balance innovation
with our operational constraint? The way that we've
approached it at Seattle Children's over the years,
it's kind of evolved a little bit. And
I really like the way where it's at
right now where,
we are thinking about AI as part of
our strategy and as part of our operational
(04:33):
work all moving forward. So it's all part
of the budget for budgeting for the operational
team. So what they're thinking about rolling out
a new feature, they would budget into it
the time and the money that are needed
to potentially
explore AI solutions there.
But at the same time, other than sort
of designing it in directly into your OpEx,
budget, you also have to think about maybe
(04:55):
investing in a distinct, discrete bucket of dollars
and time and effort that is just for
you to take risk and for you to
innovate and be creative and do really cool
things. So that way you can stay on
the bleeding edge of the technology as a,
as an organization. So that's how we've chosen
to do, and I think so far it's
really served us well.
And how are you seeing recent legislation, both
(05:16):
state and federal, affect health care organizations and
health care IT specifically? And have you adjusted
any strategies in response?
Yeah. That's a really great question. And I
really
love all the focus and the effort right
now that's happening in,
the legislative state space, both state and federal,
on making AI better and making AI safer,
(05:38):
faster, and even cheaper for us. And I
think recently, for example, we see that there's
been a national, at the federal level, conversation
about how we make sure that AI is
safe for our teens and our kids that
are potentially coming in contact with this technology.
I think as leaders, particularly
in the pediatric health space, we need to
make sure that we're advocating for our patients
and advocating for our patients,
(06:00):
families and providers
because we are both you know, we are
it's a dwindling, unfortunately, workforce. A lot of
people aren't as physicians myself as as physician
myself, we see that pediatric residency,
is that workforce is shrinking, and a lot
of people aren't going into pediatric, especially in
primary care.
At the same time, this pay this patient
population of the kids and their families is
(06:21):
probably the most vulnerable
patient population out there. And so as pediatric
health care leaders and organizations, we need to
make sure that we're advocating,
especially in the kind of the evolving technology
to make sure that our clinicians and our
patients are getting,
what is best for them, out of this.
And as we wrap up our conversation today,
what is your top piece of advice for
(06:43):
health care leaders as they prepare for further
advancements in technology and rising demands for care?
I think in my two years of doing
this kind of as a very big part
of my job, my big lessons learned is
to be very realistic about the return on
investment for artificial intelligence tools. I think there
are a lot of really cool technology or
really cool use cases. People are you're you're
(07:04):
gonna,
want to go for the shiny things, but
it's it's it'll it'll be important to resist
the shininess of it and really be realistic
at determining what that clinical value will be
for your organization
so that you could target your investment,
intelligently.
Wonderful. Well, Clara, thanks so much for joining
me today on the Becker's Healthcare Podcast and
(07:25):
sharing your insights. Again, we are recording live
at the Health IT Digital Health and RCM
conference. Thank you so much.
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