Inside CVS’s bold AI health care plan—and the tech chief’s surprising warning for the industry

Health·Artificial IntelligenceInside CVS’s bold AI health care plan—and the chief’s surprising warning for the industryBY Alexa MikhailBY Alexa MikhailSenior Reporter, Fortune WellAlexa MikhailSenior Reporter, Fortune WellAlexa Mikhail is a senior health and wellness reporter for Fortune Well, covering longevity, aging, caregiving, workplace wellness, and mental health

SEE FULL BIO "This is health care's opportunity to really leapfrog," says Tilak Mandadi, executive vice president of ventures and chief experience and nology officer at CVS Health

Courtesy of CVS HealthThe global AI health care market is soaring

It’s reportedly expected to reach over $180 billion in value by 2030

Whether to ease the administrative burden on physicians, serve as the first point of for patients, or rapidly integrate into medical re and diagnosis, AI has transformative potential for the health care field

The corporation also vides clinical services through their subsidiaries CVS Caremark and MinuteClinic

For Tilak Mandadi, the executive vice president of ventures and the chief experience and nology officer at CVS Health, innovation is already underway to disrupt the health care industry

In a conversation with Fortune, Mandadi discusses his most pressing agenda items and his predictions for the health care industry in the AI era

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

What inspired your interest in leveraging AI within the health care sector

The health care industry has not been an enthusiastic or early adopter of nology

There was a time when the health care industry lagged behind industries, finance and others, in the adoption of nology

That is pretty ly reflected in the type of experience vided to consumers

My view is very similar to what happened in the world, where they lagged behind the developed world in the adoption of wire telecommunications

Then, when cellular came into the picture, they actually leapfrogged the developed world in how connected people became

In my view, AI is that leapfrog nology for health care

We are primed for it, the use cases are very crystal, and the nology is there

I think this is health care’s opportunity to really leapfrog

You mentioned that the use cases are crystal

Can you vide an example

We have care management, where we have nurse practitioners call people that are going through stressful times, getting treated for things cancer

These nurse practitioners call them and help them navigate their health care and try to take the stress out of their s

Forty percent of their time used to be spent preparing for the call

They actually get to spend more time with the customers

Another example is that we have people who call patients and members, and the call itself typically takes X number of minutes

Then, twice that amount of time would be spent summarizing the call

We now have AI that actually records the call and summarizes it for them

I hate to say this, but I use this all the time, so I’ll say it: AI allows us to take the stupid out of work and allows us to do the real value-added work

What is your number one agenda item as chief experience and nology officer at CVS Health

The number one item is, how do we transform health care experience

Good experience leads to people engaging in their own health better and more

People engaging in their own health leads to trust in health care and doctors

Trust leads to behavioral change in how people view their s, and this behavioral change is conclusively ven to lead to better health outcomes and longevity

I know it’s a long chain, but all of that starts with health care experience being better, and that’s our primary focus right now

How do we completely transform experience

So, how does AI play a role in transforming experience and behavior change

Behavior change comes from a variety of things

It comes from, for example, drug adherence, so actually being disciplined taking your drugs every day

If AI helps us to identify people who are not going to be disciplined based on their past behavior, we can actively engage with them and give them the tools necessary to adhere to drugs better

We identify what would be the right thing for them to do next in their health journey

We want them to take control of their health journey, and AI makes that possible by simplifying health care

The reason people are not taking control of their health is not because they don’t want to, but because it’s so complex

There’s so much talk the role AI is already playing in health

There are also concerns how to democratize access and ensure the nology will tect people’s data

How are you addressing this

There’s a saying from my days working at Disney

It was from a science fiction writer who said, “The best nology is something that people don’t even know exists. ” nology in your face is not particularly ductive

Nology that takes away human touch is not something we are interested in at all at CVS

We are known for our human touch

And anywhere we use nology, it needs to enhance the human touch, not in any way replace it

We are one of the first signatories for responsible AI in the last administration

We are continuing that when we think responsible AI

The principles we are really simple

There will be no bias whatsoever in our AI models

There will be no hallucinations in the way our AI works

The use cases we use AI for are, defined and enumerated

There will be no surprise, are you using AI here or not

We know exactly what the model is doing

The most important philosophy we have of AI is that AI will never make decisions

So AI would help us collect the information

AI will help us take away the stupid work, the administrative work that we don’t want to do, but decisions that impact health outcomes would always be made by human beings who are qualified

And what the data piece

If we give the ownership of health care data to the patient, to the member, to the consumer, nobody else should have control of it

I can give consent for use of my data to others, but I should have access

Do you have one place where you could go for your health records

We want to help people to own their health records, their health data

And then I want to create complete interoperability across the stakeholders, between PBMs, viders, a health system, and health plans

Data should flow with no hurdles, and that interoperability is going to make the experience a lot better

Looking five to 10 years down the road, how would you define what success might look at CVS, under your leadership, and specifically as we think the implementation of AI

I believe AI and nology can drastically transform six dimensions of health care

One is, how do we imve access to health care

Why can’t our pharmacists vide more and more health care

How do I use nology to allow consumers to have better and broader access to health care

Second, how do we reduce the cost of health care

And nology is going to play an incredible role

And it should be crystal what your benefits are in real-time when you’re with a doctor

Health care is bably the only industry that I could think of where you go buy something without knowing what it’s going to cost you

So you go for a surgery, but it’s not what my total cost is

I want nology and AI to take away that confusion

Before you go for a cedure, we will tell you exactly what your cost is going to be

You want to longer and you want to a quality life

I think nology is going to make a huge difference

What timeline are we talking here to see this in action

I think in five years, health care is going to be unrecognizable

In 10 years, it will be completely different

You should be able to go on the CVS app to click a button and actually talk to an AI agent for the initial consultation

The AI agent will then connect you seamlessly to a human doctor, all in real-time

The biggest issue people have in health care is that they are forced to do all the work and all the across an extremely complex ecosystem

What customers want is somebody else to do all the work and vide a one-stop shop

What types of roles or skill sets are going to be emerging in the health care system with this major nological transformation

The absolute worst thing that companies can do is create a chief AI officer role

That is by far the worst thing that companies can do

Did we create a chief cellular phone officer for the company when the mobile phone became ubiquitous

That is mistaking a tool for a solution

I think companies should create the chief experience officer role

I think the existing roles are actually going to acquire new responsibilities

I think AI will become an integral part of the day-to-day life of the medical officers, the service representatives, and the customer support folks

Everybody will use AI in their day-to-day life to do their jobs better

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