Dr. Pedro Teixeira: Thoughtful AI: The Honest Conversation Healthcare Isn't Having

Dr. Karen Litzy is joined by Dr. Pedro Teixeira, Vice President of AI Engineering at Prompt Health and former co-founder and CEO of Prediction Health, for a practical conversation about how AI fits into healthcare workflows. Pedro breaks down the differences among automation, AI, and agentic systems and explains why the best tools support clinicians rather than replace their judgment. This episode focuses on what clinic owners and clinicians should look for when evaluating AI tools: workflow fit, safety, latency, cost, and whether the system improves over time. If you want a grounded, non-hype conversation about AI in healthcare, this is a useful one. Key topics ·       In this episode, Karen and Pedro compare thoughtful AI vs powerful AI and why workflow fit matters as much as model capability. ·       Pedro explains latency in practical terms, including why perceived delay matters and how feedback like loading states can make AI feel faster. ·       They unpack tokens, model size, and cost, including why input and output usage can change pricing so quickly. ·       Pedro shares how AI can work in the background across notes, codes, compliance checks, and analytics for clinic owners. ·       The conversation covers HIPAA, PHI, encryption, sandboxing, and limited tool access as essential safeguards for healthcare AI. ·       Pedro distinguishes automation, AI, and agentic systems, with examples of when rules are enough and when messy data really does call for AI. ·       They compare predictive vs generative models and explain why generating plausible text is not the same as forecasting a clinical outcome. ·       Karen and Pedro discuss how some clinics are using AI as a decision support tool, while still keeping humans in control of final decisions. ·       Pedro emphasizes that clinic owners should think in terms of systems, including what happens when AI works well and when it fails. ·       He closes with a simple evaluation question for any AI pitch: How does this system get better over time? Timestamps 00:00 - Introduction and why Pedro Teixeira is a grounded voice on AI in healthcare 01:24 - Why thoughtful AI matters more than powerful AI 03:57 - What latency means and why perceived speed changes the user experience 05:16 - How models work with transcripts, prompts, and tokens 07:24 - What tokens are and why AI bills can rise fast 09:13 - The real cost of large models, GPUs, and background processing 11:23 - How AI can quietly support clinic analytics and business coaching 13:13 - Why healthcare AI must stay closed loop and HIPAA safe 15:13 - Automation vs AI vs agentic systems 18:59 - Predictive vs generative models explained for clinic owners 21:45 - When AI can predict patterns from clinician notes and when it cannot 24:03 - How power user clinics are using AI tools in practice 25:56 - Why AI should do what clinicians decide, not decide for them 28:37 - Designing AI around systems, workflows, and failure states 30:22 - Using SOPs and training docs to think through AI implementation 31:57 - How clinic owners should evaluate whether to bring AI into the practice 35:53 - The one question to ask any AI vendor: how does it improve over time? 37:00 - Final takeaways and encouraging clinics to experiment 38:02 - Lightning round: overhyped AI tools in healthcare 39:20 - What clinicians should understand about how AI really works 40:50 - What Pedro would do if he were not building healthcare AI 41:41 - Real world learning, messy data, and why experience matters 42:59 - Pedro's health habits and the AI built tracker on his watch 44:15 - Where to find Pedro and Prompt Health Notable quotes "Thoughtful AI is really taking into account where are people using it, how does it fit into their day to day?" "The best systems are the ones where you are deciding." "How does this system get better?" Resources & Links: ·      Prompt Health ·      Pedro on LinkedIn More About Dr. Pedro Teixeira: Pedro Teixeira, MD, PhD, is Vice President of AI Engineering at Prompt Health and previously served as Co-Founder and CEO of PredictionHealth, now a Prompt Health company. With nearly two decades of experience across AI and healthcare and PhD-level training in biomedical informatics from Harvard and Vanderbilt, Pedro is one of the most grounded voices on AI in healthcare. He believes healthcare's biggest challenges are systems problems, not technology problems, and that the real promise of AI is creating leverage so clinicians can spend more time on what matters most: their patients. Jane Sponsorship Information: Book a one-on-one demo here Mention the code LITZY1MO for a free month Follow Dr. Karen Litzy on Social Media: Karen's Instagram Karen's LinkedIn Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: YouTube Website Apple Podcast Spotify SoundCloud Stitcher iHeart Radio