Reimagining the Workforce for Population Health: Why AI matters to everyone in healthcare
Artificial intelligence is moving quickly from possibility to practice, changing how healthcare is delivered, how research is conducted, how students are educated and how organizations work to improve the health of communities.
What does that mean for the people who make up today’s and tomorrow’s workforce, in healthcare and beyond?
That question will take center stage at Creighton University’s fourth annual University Symposium on Population Health, “Reimagining the Workforce for Population Health,” from noon to 4 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 5, in the Harper Center, Ahmanson Ballroom, on Creighton’s Omaha campus.
The symposium will bring together students, faculty, healthcare professionals, researchers and community partners to explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping healthcare and what it will take to ensure these technologies actually improve health outcomes and strengthen communities.
The event is free, and continuing education credits are available. Learn more about the sessions and register to attend.
More than a conversation about technology
“This year’s symposium will challenge us to expand our thinking about the skills and workforce roles that are needed to advance population health,” says Scott Shipman, MD, MPH, executive director of the Institute for Population Health and Nebraska Healthcare Collaborative Endowed Chair in Population Health.
For Shipman, that means looking beyond the technology itself.
“Any effort to advance population health is interwoven with the complexity of human relationships. Relationships are built on a foundation of trust. Today’s low level of public trust in experts, including in science, public health and healthcare, provides an unstable foundation for patients or providers to entrust insights and recommendations derived in a black box through technology and AI.” he says.
That focus on people, systems and partnerships is at the heart of this year’s symposium. AI may be a powerful tool, but how it is used, and who helps shape that use, will determine its impact.
‘Reimagining Population Health in the Age of AI’
The keynote session, “Reimagining Population Health in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” will bring together national healthcare leaders Mandy Cohen, MD, MPH, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and senior advisor with Manatt Health and Jared Augenstein, MPH, MA, senior managing director with Manatt Health.
In advance of the symposium, Augenstein responded to several questionson behalf of himself and Cohen about why this conversation matters now and what they hope attendees take away.
Why is this the right time to have this conversation?
We've moved past the phase where AI in health care was mostly a promise. The technology is now being deployed in real clinical and administrative settings, and the policy scaffolding around it is beginning to catch up. Population health is where there is the most opportunity for AI to have a meaningful positive impact because of how poorly our current system supports real population health success and because these technologies can work particularly well for chronic disease prevention and management. This is the moment to be clear-eyed about what's real, what's overstated, and what has to be true for the technology to actually improve population health rather than just automate the status quo.
Who should hear this conversation and why is your message important to them?
This conversation is especially for students, faculty and the workforce, because they're the ones who will define how AI actually gets used in health care over the next decade. The students in the room will be the clinicians, public health practitioners, and researchers deciding whether these tools genuinely serve patients and communities, and the faculty are shaping how the next generation learns to think about them. My core message is that AI doesn't fix a broken population health model on its own; it amplifies whatever system you point it at. If the underlying incentives, data, and workflows aren't sound, AI will simply help us do the wrong things faster. That's not a reason for cynicism, it's a call for a generation that understands both the technology and the health system deeply enough to insist it be pointed at the right problems. The people entering the field now have a real chance to get this right in ways my generation hasn't fully managed.
What do you hope attendees leave your presentation thinking about?
I hope attendees leave with a sharper filter for separating promise from hype, and a healthy sense of their own agency. For students especially, I want them thinking about where they personally could shape how this technology is built and deployed, whether that's at the bedside, in a research lab, in a health department, or in policy. If a student or faculty member walks out asking better questions about the evidence, the incentives, and who benefits, and feeling like those questions are theirs to help answer, that's exactly what I'm hoping for.”
Join the conversation Thursday, Nov. 5, and explore what it will take to build a workforce prepared not simply to use AI, but to use it thoughtfully, responsibly and in ways that advance population health.
The University Symposium on Population Health is free and open to students, faculty, healthcare professionals, and the community. Continuing education credits are available. View the sessions and register today.
Creighton’s three Institutes of Excellence are co-sponsors for the keynote presentation: the Institute for Population Health, the Kingfisher Institute for the Liberal Arts and Professions, and the Institute for Adaptive Intelligence.