Our expert answers 3 Questions
Right now, I’m looking at how design, data, and AI can work together to make health better on a large scale. My work spans three areas: 1) designing buildings and spaces that support health, 2) leading research that produces evidence to guide policy and care, and 3) exploring AI tools that can make healthcare workflows more efficient and fair. I’m also writing a book about how the places we design‚Äîfrom hospitals to neighborhoods‚Äîaffect our health, and how we can do better. Whether it’s buildings, policies, or data, I think we can improve how these systems work so they deliver better results for everyone.
I’ve seen the saying, “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets," play out over and over in my career‚Äînot just in the operating room, but in the spaces we use, the policies we follow, and now the digital tools that shape our work. In healthcare, people put in an enormous amount of effort, and we should have systems that make the most of that work. AI tools have made it easier to spot patterns and see where things aren’t working as well as they could. For me, this is about using creativity, evidence, and technology together both to solve problems that can impact individuals and to scale solutions across entire health systems, regions, and beyond.
Every choice we make about our buildings, our data, or our technology affects health in some way. Good decisions depend on strong evidence, sound policies, and the right tools. We're in a moment where technology and computing can finally keep up with the huge amounts of data we collect. Some policies and regulations that made sense in the past (e.g., certain codes guiding hospital construction) may not make sense anymore. We also overlook the health impact of a lot of everyday design choices. And in many cases, we already have the information we need right under our nose—it's just a matter of using these emerging digital tools correctly to help us see it.