ORLANDO—Tech was literally center stage at the annual Lake Nona Impact Forum this week.
From live demos of robots and medical video games to speakers who identify as futurists, there were plenty of moments that felt like science fiction. Yet this is where healthcare is headed. Advances are moving at a breakneck pace. Something that seems far-fetched today likely won’t be very soon.
It wasn’t that long ago when Microsoft unveiled Copilot, one attendee reflected. Now, the tech is being used worldwide to automatically draft clinical notes, saving clinicians time.
At the heart of many sessions at this year’s conference was the idea that, in order to extend life, society needs to consider how to improve its quality. People are living longer—Do they have social connection? Are they healthy? The greatest invention for seniors in the last decade has only been pickleball, one executive half-joked. A longevity preparedness report published last fall found the U.S. ranks low, with care being the biggest blind spot, as many adults have not planned what they’ll need to live independently.
“Americans are woefully underprepared to live a long life right now,” Brooks Tingle, CEO of life insurer John Hancock, said on a panel. The company co-published the longevity preparedness report alongside MIT AgeLab.
Thinking about how to live longer is core to the philosophy of Lake Nona—the 17-square-mile planned community in Orlando where the conference is held—which focuses on technology, mobility and wellbeing. The community is home to leading hospitals, universities, research institutions and health and life sciences companies.
Tech should support longevity, many speakers agreed. There was a lot of excitement about using tech to democratize access to health information and empower consumers to live healthier lives.
“The newfound ability to really understand vast amounts of clinical data, create cohorts of digital patients for clinical trials, we’re going to see a huge acceleration of the advancement of medical discoveries,” Peter Lee, Ph.D., president of Microsoft Research, said on a panel.
Ajani Dunn, chief administrative officer of Mayo Clinic Florida, went as far as to say Mayo needs to shift away from being primarily a healthcare company to being a tech company focused on managing data. “We have to shift to be a technology company,” Dunn said on a panel. “Then, we force ourselves to act in different ways.” For instance, a tech company would hire product and automation teams. The entire operating model would be different, Dunn said, while acknowledging that what will differentiate healthcare organizations in the future will be how well they preserve the human touch.
Echoing Dunn in a separate session, Optum CEO Patrick Conway, M.D., said, “It’s going to be humans at the center, empowered by AI and technology, to do the best work.”
Conway talked about the importance of an integrated health system and being a diversified company caring holistically for people. From care delivery to pharmacy benefit management to data analytics, Optum has verticals spanning healthcare. Leveraging data is core to its approach, Conway said.
Optum uses its large patient dataset to predict risk and notify care teams to intervene early. “The clinician’s making the final decision, but you put a system around them that’s much better and more predictive,” Conway said.
The company also partners with pharma on precision medicine, though it’s early in the effort. To support real-world evidence, Optum shares its data with pharma to help target the right therapies to the right patients.
“Can we partner with people to make sure that the patients that need a given therapy receive that therapy?” Conway said. “You’re going to see [this effort] continue to grow over time.”
On AI, Optum is working with engineers, health systems and payers to understand how best to leverage it. The goal is to accelerate cycle time. “If we can be fast, if we can solve problems,” Conway said, “that’s how we improve the health system quicker.”