Thanks for tuning in (or catching up) on our chat with Dr. Graham Walker—ER doc, AI leader, and someone who’s been rolling out AI for 10,000+ doctors.
We covered a lot, but here are my five takeaways:
- Trust—not tech—is the real challenge. Doctors rely on tools that have been tested for years—AI feels like it just showed up overnight. The fastest way to build trust is by removing the black box. Give clinicians a reason to believe it–show why AI makes a call, not the call itself.
- Doctors trust other doctors, not dashboards. You can show all the charts and studies you want, but at the end of the day, nothing convinces a clinician more than hearing, “Yeah, I use this—it actually helps.” That kind of word-of-mouth is what really drives adoption.
- Overcommunication doesn’t exist. Doctors are busy, they miss emails, and they won’t dig through a 20-page manual. If you want adoption, you need a champion in every department who can translate the value into their world.
- Start with the tech nerds, but remember they won’t be your best champions. At Kaiser, new AI tools go to early adopters first—they expect bugs and give feedback. But when you roll it out system-wide, the real champions are the ones who struggle with tech the most. They’re the ones spending hours on admin stuff–so when AI helps, everyone will know.
- No bug reports doesn’t mean everything’s working—doctors just don’t have time. If you want real feedback, don’t wait for it. Either give clinicians protected time (like 10% for tech) or go watch them work. Epic does this whenever building a new product—they send a team on-site to see how doctors actually work.
Watch the replay.
.png)
