130: AI in Play: The Clinicians Shaping Healthcare Technology Part I

The Future of Healthcare AI: Empowering Nurses Through Human-Centered Technology

Episode 130 features nurse Mary Varghese-Presti, Corporate VP and COO of Microsoft Health and Life Sciences, whose team built Dragon Copilot, the first commercially available ambient AI solution purpose-built for nursing workflows. We learn how Microsoft co-designed this tool directly with staff nurses, nurse managers, and nurse executives across more than 10 health systems, and why that collaboration is essential. We'll learn about Microsoft's vision for a three-stage AI future, from co-pilots to agents to a true hybrid workforce, and what it would mean for nurses to have the ability to delegate tasks the way physicians have long been able to do. Finally, we hear the deeply personal story behind Mary's mission, from growing up in an immigrant household surrounded by nurse "aunties," to advocating for a voiceless patient at 4 am as a young nurse at Johns Hopkins, to now leading the technology that she believes will restore humanity and dignity to the very profession that shaped her.

Episode 131 features Dominic King, former surgeon and VP of Health at Microsoft AI, where his team builds and scales consumer health tools that see more than 50 million health-related sessions a day. In this conversation, we learn about Microsoft's partnership with Harvard Medical School and how it's working to ensure that the billions of health questions people ask AI every day are met with credible, clinically sound information. We also hear how he thinks about patient safety and trust in AI, and we'll get his candid take on what AI cannot replace, why clinicians must be central to scaling these tools beyond the pilot stage, and how he believes technology is the single biggest lever for making health systems sustainable in the face of growing global demand.