Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Tony Ambrozie on AI, Digital Health and the Future of Pharmacy

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Tony Ambrozie on AI, Digital Health and the Future of Pharmacy · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

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- Hello, and welcome to the Becker's Healthcare podcast.
1:00
- My name is Chanel Banger. And today, I
1:02
- have the pleasure of speaking with Tony Ambrosie,
1:04
- the senior vice president and chief digital and
1:07
- technology officer pharmacy at CVS Health Enterprise
1:11
- and Health one hundred who joins the podcast
1:13
- today to share insights and his background,
1:15
- health care trends he's keeping an eye on,
1:17
- and a bit more. Tony, thank you so
1:18
- much for joining me today. Thank you for
1:20
- inviting me. Of course. Of course. Well, it's
1:23
- great to have you. To get us started
1:24
- out, could you please introduce yourself and tell
1:26
- us a bit about your work in health
1:28
- care?
1:29
- So I'm currently the, as you described, I
1:32
- am responsible for the digital product engineering for
1:36
- all things
1:37
- pharmacy systems that deal with real with with
1:41
- physical,
1:42
- medications
1:44
- across CVS health, which obviously is a super
1:46
- important thing for
1:48
- for our our patients and consumers.
1:51
- I also have responsibilities
1:53
- for a new endeavor that I may we
1:56
- may be talking later
1:57
- called Health one hundred, which is a separate
2:00
- subsidiary of of CVS Health
2:02
- that is focused on
2:04
- consumer engagement,
2:06
- digital engagement.
2:08
- I've been here for about three years almost.
2:11
- And then before
2:12
- that for about three years, this is where,
2:16
- Beckers and I and Scott and I
2:18
- have met as the,
2:20
- similar role to digital information officer at a
2:24
- well known hospital system in in South Florida.
2:28
- So if you count the years
2:31
- I've joined, I've moved into,
2:34
- health care in the middle of the pandemic
2:37
- in the fall of twenty twenty.
2:40
- And I think it was one of where
2:41
- you where your previous podcast that we did
2:44
- together
2:45
- where, basically,
2:46
- somebody said,
2:48
- you had moved from Disney, which is the
2:50
- I spent the seven years before, to health
2:52
- care in the middle of a pandemic
2:54
- in the sense of what were you thinking,
2:56
- but that was exactly the right thing to
2:58
- do with with all the the needs for,
3:02
- digital and now
3:04
- more than that with AI that health care
3:06
- has. So
3:07
- before that, Disney for about seven years, and
3:10
- before that, American Express for twelve years,
3:13
- and all focused on
3:15
- consumers,
3:16
- customers, members,
3:18
- patients, whatever whatever you wanna call them. So
3:22
- just in case you're wondering about this, you
3:24
- know, finance,
3:26
- you know,
3:27
- entertainment,
3:28
- then health care, I,
3:31
- I usually go where
3:33
- I believe the biggest,
3:35
- opportunity for
3:37
- change and transformation
3:38
- is
3:39
- and, clearly, health care, not,
3:42
- CVS in particular, but, clearly, health care as
3:44
- an industry as an ecosystem
3:46
- probably could benefit from folks like myself coming
3:49
- from other industries
3:51
- with a,
3:53
- intense focus on on consumer experience.
3:56
- Whether I find these opportunities or they find
3:58
- me, that's still an open question.
4:01
- I love it. Thank you so much for
4:02
- the introduction.
4:03
- And now before we,
4:05
- go any further, can you give us a
4:07
- sense of Health one hundred and the mission
4:09
- there?
4:10
- Oh, so it's,
4:12
- what we want to do,
4:14
- is solve a number of,
4:17
- somewhat,
4:19
- problematic
4:20
- issues
4:21
- in health care. One is
4:23
- ask these patients because we're all patients of
4:26
- one kind or another.
4:27
- All our information, medical records, and
4:31
- and insurance, and pharmacies
4:33
- all over the place.
4:35
- So,
4:36
- if you think about it, a relatively simple
4:39
- health
4:40
- care journey
4:41
- that starts with, oh, I have a
4:43
- I have a pain, then I go to
4:45
- see a doctor. Maybe they send me to
4:47
- another doctor, a specialist, maybe some labs, maybe
4:51
- MRI,
4:52
- and maybe some, medications.
4:54
- In that journey, I just described in, like,
4:57
- five seconds, there are probably multiple places where
5:00
- that information my information is.
5:02
- It's all truncated
5:05
- for the purpose of that particular
5:07
- silo.
5:08
- Right?
5:09
- And then it's a challenge for me and
5:12
- for us as a patient to put all
5:14
- that together.
5:15
- And if you multiply with journey like this
5:17
- with a major journey that one would, well,
5:19
- would have, some shorter, some longer,
5:22
- it becomes a lot of a lot of
5:24
- homework
5:25
- for a patient to,
5:27
- see everything in one place. So that's one
5:30
- thing that we want to solve,
5:33
- with, Health one hundred, the consumer engagement part,
5:36
- which is bring all this information together. Alright?
5:40
- Now and that's enormously,
5:42
- valuable.
5:43
- It's for ourselves as patients to kind
5:47
- of see it all in one place. It's
5:49
- very valuable when we have this information and
5:52
- we can go and with the next doctor
5:54
- that we see, we don't start with, you
5:56
- know, that paper clipboard with 50 questions that
5:59
- most people don't remember the eight questions for.
6:04
- You have you ever been allergic to blah?
6:06
- I can't remember that. Right? So that's that's
6:09
- where this this information, this data here that
6:11
- belongs to me as a patient
6:13
- or in the consumer.
6:15
- I can, share it with whoever,
6:18
- needs it in the process of my care,
6:22
- and and things become become easy.
6:25
- Now if we layer on
6:27
- something like AI,
6:30
- I would say a very well thought through
6:32
- AI
6:34
- that can then look at all these
6:37
- multiple
6:39
- points data points and whether it's longitudinal
6:42
- or or,
6:44
- transversal.
6:45
- Very likely,
6:47
- we could be seeing something that individual
6:50
- data points don't show a story.
6:53
- You know? It's just a this going up,
6:56
- whatever,
6:57
- the measurement is or the lab is, plus
7:00
- that going down, plus the other going sideways,
7:04
- that's probably
7:06
- a interesting
7:07
- signal
7:08
- that individual look at looking at these,
7:12
- three things individually probably will not will not
7:14
- see.
7:15
- That's a it's a huge deal. And the
7:17
- more of these measurements and visits and
7:21
- whatever it is, there are, the more
7:24
- signal, I believe, is there, but it gets,
7:27
- simply
7:29
- not detected because,
7:31
- you know, participants in this journey
7:34
- and providers in this journey tend to have
7:37
- limited access to just,
7:39
- a a small part. Sometimes that small part
7:42
- is frankly not bigger than a keyhole.
7:45
- Right? So that's that's a that's a it's
7:47
- a huge benefit.
7:49
- Then what we wanna do with this is
7:52
- not we call this the front door to
7:54
- health care,
7:56
- trusted front door to health care, which means
7:59
- we want this to be this consumer engagement
8:02
- platform app where to
8:04
- be the place where people go.
8:06
- When they have a need, they go in.
8:09
- And then somehow, either we we help them
8:12
- in there, obviously.
8:13
- I'm talking about consumer engagement. This is not
8:16
- a doctor of any kind, certainly not a
8:18
- AI doctor.
8:19
- But at least, we we provide if nothing
8:22
- else,
8:23
- we provide the guidance where to where to
8:26
- go next, what to do next.
8:28
- So they're not abandoned in the middle of
8:30
- a problem
8:32
- with what do I do next,
8:34
- where do I go, who do I see.
8:36
- So these are some of the
8:38
- big aspects of,
8:41
- of what we're trying to do.
8:43
- Of course, as I said in that journey,
8:46
- clearly,
8:47
- pharmacy is important. So
8:49
- how do you do do do I get
8:50
- the drugs, the medications?
8:53
- How do I manage that? How do I
8:55
- manage my,
8:57
- my prescriptions the best way possible?
9:00
- And then, of of course, is the insurance.
9:03
- How does that fit in order to,
9:06
- for me as a patient, and get the
9:08
- best benefit?
9:10
- One thing that I would say is this
9:12
- consumer engagement is not
9:15
- just for
9:16
- CVS,
9:18
- customers.
9:19
- It's open to anyone.
9:20
- And, of course, the more partners we bring
9:23
- into this ecosystem, whether it's payers, that is
9:25
- insurance companies,
9:27
- whether it's pharmacies, etcetera, etcetera,
9:30
- the more richer this ecosystem is for the
9:33
- benefit of the consumers.
9:36
- Got it. Got it. Thank you so much.
9:38
- And now that we have a sense of
9:39
- your background and the mission of Health one
9:41
- hundred, kind of broadening out the conversation a
9:44
- bit, can you talk about the trends that
9:46
- you're
9:47
- currently watching either in digital health, pharmacy, or
9:50
- just health care overall?
9:52
- So one thing and then it kinda links
9:53
- to what what I was just describing. One
9:56
- thing is a it's a interesting trend. It's
9:58
- a great trend.
10:00
- Is
10:01
- we
10:02
- and, frankly, yes,
10:04
- the we includes me only in the last
10:06
- six years. I appreciate that,
10:08
- but a lot of others have been
10:11
- talking and working on interoperability,
10:14
- which is
10:16
- the ability for a patient data to be
10:19
- exchanged between players that need it in the
10:22
- course of that patient journey.
10:25
- I think in the last year or so,
10:26
- and I give,
10:28
- CMS,
10:29
- a lot of credit on this.
10:31
- And we have made a lot of progress.
10:34
- A lot of progress. Obviously, you can you
10:37
- can read about it, but I think we
10:39
- made more progress in the last year than
10:41
- the last the previous five years,
10:43
- because it's it's very important when doctors and
10:45
- insurance companies and pharmacies
10:48
- and the patients themselves
10:50
- don't
10:51
- really have the
10:52
- that view
10:53
- of all the pieces of information that this
10:56
- patient me as a patient have,
10:59
- that's the problem. So it's a great it's
11:01
- a start of the first, frankly, the first
11:04
- year of probably,
11:05
- multiyear,
11:07
- process,
11:08
- but it's a great thing.
11:09
- And, yes, we can talk about other things,
11:11
- but this is a very concrete,
11:15
- element that it's,
11:17
- that is what is happening here.
11:19
- Lots and lots of participants.
11:21
- Lots of participants as I describe all these
11:23
- companies. They have,
11:25
- all, you know, their role to play.
11:28
- And so getting everybody on board, it will
11:31
- it's a journey. It will be a journey,
11:33
- but I think as a patient,
11:36
- if I look at what's happening for my
11:38
- own selfish benefit as a patient,
11:41
- it's wonderful.
11:43
- Absolutely. And now you've already spoken a lot
11:45
- about,
11:47
- what you're most focused on currently. But if
11:49
- you were to narrow it down, as we
11:50
- close out 2026,
11:52
- what are you most focused on and excited
11:54
- about?
11:55
- So here is the and, obviously,
11:58
- we cannot not have a
12:00
- a a conversation like this without
12:03
- me or you or both talking about AI.
12:06
- Right? And everybody's talking about AI.
12:09
- But,
12:10
- sometimes
12:11
- that those conversations are not very focused,
12:15
- and they're not focused necessarily on safety
12:19
- and are not necessarily focused on outcomes.
12:22
- Good outcomes for consumers, patients, members, whatever you
12:26
- wanna we wanna call them. So that's the
12:29
- the very important thing. And then I mentioned
12:31
- a little bit earlier on,
12:33
- Health one hundred is
12:35
- just bringing all this data
12:37
- in one place is wonderful as we've never
12:40
- had it. We're starting to have it. That's
12:42
- wonderful.
12:43
- But now there's a lot of data,
12:46
- for somebody,
12:47
- like a like a patient, the consumer,
12:50
- to make sense of. And a lot of
12:53
- it is in very medical
12:55
- terms, so
12:57
- you know, reading after visit summary is usually
13:00
- a exercise or used to be an exercise
13:02
- in,
13:04
- checking on Google, translating on Google from those
13:07
- medical terms to something that we all can
13:09
- understand.
13:10
- I think this is where AI has the
13:12
- biggest,
13:14
- could have the biggest impact.
13:16
- Again, to make things intelligible
13:19
- to connect,
13:20
- those dots that otherwise
13:23
- are not
13:24
- easy. And, also, and something very important is
13:27
- if you think about it, PCPs, primary care
13:30
- providers, have had the immense role
13:33
- in health care for a long time, you
13:35
- know, all the way back to
13:37
- the, you know, family doctor and and and
13:40
- and and,
13:41
- the small towns.
13:43
- Huge, huge,
13:45
- role.
13:46
- And that is they were able to try
13:49
- to coordinate
13:51
- the the,
13:53
- health care journey for a patient.
13:56
- Right? Now that has become a lot more,
13:59
- difficult because so many so many,
14:02
- players in that
14:04
- that journey
14:05
- and also so many other complexities.
14:08
- Yes. PCPs are still trying to do that,
14:10
- but they have a limited time
14:12
- and focus and an attention and bandwidth
14:16
- to do that. So now it's either them,
14:18
- but it's limited or the patient, and there's
14:21
- all sorts of challenges.
14:23
- I believe
14:24
- that AI can be that,
14:26
- let's call it care coordinator, don't quote the
14:29
- necessary. That's not a
14:31
- that's not a copyright term or on any
14:33
- kind, but it's something that kind of
14:36
- pulls all these things together and
14:39
- and tracks things and making sure make sure
14:42
- that,
14:44
- good things happen
14:45
- for that particular,
14:47
- patient. So
14:48
- this is where,
14:50
- AI done well again
14:52
- is a net added value. It doesn't replace
14:55
- doctors. It doesn't replace nurses.
14:57
- Maybe replaces a lot of the,
15:00
- homework that we have to do
15:02
- ourselves about our, health
15:05
- health,
15:06
- well-being and well-being.
15:08
- Well, that's that's a good thing. But,
15:11
- it's something that doesn't exist, is not being
15:13
- done,
15:14
- and there's a true opportunity for AI to
15:17
- actually play a very useful
15:20
- role for the patients.
15:22
- Well, that is definitely exciting. And, yeah, you
15:25
- can't have a conversation about health care without
15:27
- bringing up AI for sure. But now that
15:30
- you've shared what you're looking forward to, looking
15:32
- back for a moment, what are you most
15:34
- proud of accomplishing over the last six to
15:36
- eighteen months or so?
15:39
- Definitely,
15:40
- bringing,
15:41
- Health one hundred from a an idea in
15:44
- some of us'
15:46
- heads and
15:47
- as it makes sense, would it be good
15:50
- to something that,
15:52
- is happening today?
15:55
- And this is,
15:57
- something that
15:58
- when some of us started talking across CVS,
16:02
- including up to the executive leadership team and
16:06
- CEO and and even into the board,
16:10
- you know, I'm I'm very pleased.
16:12
- And frankly, I'm proud of CVS as a
16:15
- company and as a culture. So the reaction
16:19
- was,
16:20
- wow. This is a great idea.
16:21
- It would be very good for people whether
16:24
- they're our customers or not.
16:27
- It it would be,
16:28
- it would be,
16:30
- making a big difference.
16:32
- Sometimes,
16:33
- the way the the best of
16:36
- of efforts by all the players,
16:38
- there are still
16:40
- broken or missing links between players, and something
16:43
- like this could also
16:45
- give,
16:46
- consumers the ability to
16:48
- mend or create those links in a way
16:51
- that's that's good for for us. And so,
16:54
- we're very pleased with the the reaction and
16:56
- the support inside
16:58
- inside Cervillos
17:00
- because we do wanna
17:01
- do good things. We wanna do change things
17:05
- as much as possible, as much as a
17:07
- particular initiative or a particular company,
17:11
- could do in this
17:13
- huge industry,
17:15
- complex industry,
17:16
- very fragmented industry.
17:18
- And, frankly, I'm not telling you probably anything
17:21
- that
17:22
- you haven't heard and you haven't known for
17:24
- for a while. So how do we solve
17:27
- how do we solve a little bit? Maybe
17:28
- a little bit more. I don't know where
17:30
- where this could go.
17:32
- But,
17:33
- certainly,
17:36
- you know, a huge support, which I'm which
17:38
- I'm very proud of frankly,
17:40
- not for myself, but,
17:42
- about CVS.
17:43
- And who knows where this could be in,
17:46
- you know, small steps,
17:49
- but who else where we'll all be? And
17:52
- if we and others like us, because we're
17:54
- not the only ones,
17:56
- we'll be doing this,
17:58
- let's say, in how we're where where we
18:00
- will be all be as patients and and
18:02
- players in the health care ecosystem,
18:05
- who knows where we will be in, let's
18:06
- say, five years.
18:08
- Hopefully, in a much better,
18:11
- ecosystem.
18:12
- Absolutely.
18:13
- And now as someone with all of your
18:15
- experience in and out of health care and
18:17
- who wears, frankly, a lot of hats, I'd
18:20
- be curious to hear what advice you'd give
18:22
- to evolving leaders looking to have the same
18:24
- impact and drive in their careers as you
18:26
- have.
18:27
- Well,
18:28
- it's it's funny because, this is, you know,
18:32
- leaders and leadership is the
18:35
- is the is the,
18:36
- focus of my second book. The first one
18:38
- I read I wrote three years ago was
18:40
- do doing digital.
18:42
- And, yes, there was some AI in there.
18:44
- Well, now
18:45
- I I came back to a theme that
18:47
- I've always wanted to,
18:49
- to talk about because it's been the hardest
18:52
- journey I've ever taken. You know? I've
18:58
- technology. I believe there should be something that
19:00
- we're all
19:01
- we're all still students of however long we've
19:04
- we've done this. But so there I'll I'll
19:06
- answer this in two ways. There are two
19:08
- parts, I would think.
19:10
- You know, the general things. You know?
19:12
- Optimism,
19:14
- courage,
19:16
- drive,
19:17
- accountability.
19:18
- These are all things that you've heard others
19:21
- others talk about for a very long time.
19:23
- They're still important.
19:24
- And all of them are based on
19:27
- listening well,
19:29
- learning a lot, reading a lot constantly
19:33
- in order to make sense of what's what's
19:35
- going on, whether it's some years ago about,
19:39
- digital,
19:40
- doing digital, like the title of my first
19:42
- book,
19:43
- or,
19:44
- the cloud or any other technology, generic technology.
19:48
- Right?
19:49
- And now
19:50
- now AI. So,
19:52
- learning constant learning, constant processing, constant
19:57
- thinking about
19:58
- the topics,
19:59
- are,
20:00
- is important. Now the second part of my
20:02
- answer
20:04
- is going back to AI.
20:06
- We hear a lot and we read a
20:08
- lot, and and you at Deckers are very
20:11
- good at kind of a toning down
20:13
- some of the noise that exists in the
20:15
- in the ecosystem and in the industry.
20:18
- We hear about AI,
20:20
- and you you hear some folks' AI
20:24
- is like a, you know, super,
20:26
- intelligent toaster. You plug it in the in
20:29
- the wall, and
20:30
- everything will be different, and everything will be
20:33
- wonderful.
20:34
- And it's not like that at all. It's
20:37
- a powerful tool, and it can help us
20:40
- solve some of our problems the way I
20:42
- described it earlier
20:44
- with that coordination.
20:45
- That's a problem that doesn't have solutions because
20:48
- we don't have
20:49
- those millions of PCPs.
20:51
- We just simply don't have them
20:53
- to do that for for patients and is
20:55
- needed.
20:56
- So AI does and could do a lot
20:59
- of great things.
21:01
- Certainly not hacking into other people's companies as
21:04
- if we've seen
21:06
- OpenAI Entropic and whoever else. That's not the
21:09
- good thing.
21:10
- But the I think we as leaders at
21:14
- all levels,
21:15
- we are more needed than ever. And it's
21:17
- just these transformational
21:19
- moments where leadership shows, true leadership shows,
21:23
- and how we guide this transformation,
21:26
- where we take it,
21:28
- where we adjust it, where sometimes we push
21:30
- back,
21:32
- especially
21:32
- in the face of
21:34
- unreasonable
21:36
- expectations
21:36
- of
21:38
- of things.
21:39
- Remembering
21:40
- that
21:41
- what we do,
21:43
- whether as leaders or as companies or as
21:45
- countries,
21:47
- is about people,
21:49
- not technologies,
21:51
- not tools.
21:53
- And therefore, we have a huge
21:55
- responsibility
21:56
- for to our,
21:58
- teams,
21:59
- the folks that work
22:00
- with us and our companies and
22:03
- our local communities and our nation
22:06
- to guide this
22:08
- incredible
22:09
- piece of technology
22:11
- in a way that benefits the most folks
22:14
- most of the time.
22:16
- And it's funny because those last two statements,
22:19
- most most people most of the time,
22:22
- It's what I used in, you know, years
22:24
- ago in digital is how do we build
22:26
- experiences that benefit most people
22:29
- most of the time? And that's even true.
22:31
- With AI, we, as leaders, makes must make
22:34
- sure that
22:35
- we evaluate
22:37
- the reality
22:38
- with the focus on them and and keeping
22:40
- in mind
22:41
- the purpose of,
22:43
- which is people, whether it's
22:45
- our own people or the consumer or the
22:47
- customers.
22:49
- How do we guide all this? And it's
22:52
- a huge challenge
22:54
- that all of us have to are responsible
22:56
- for.
22:58
- I love it. Well, Tony, that's a great
22:59
- note to end on. I wanna thank you
23:01
- once again for your time today and for
23:03
- sharing your insights on the Becker's Healthcare podcast.
23:05
- Thank you so much. Absolutely. Thank you.