Webinar to feature Information Systems faculty of Carnegie Mellon University, Princeton University, Vanderbilt University, and IIM Bangalore

9 June 2025, Bengaluru: As part of its initiative to promote the dissemination and application of knowledge for the benefit of academic and industry professionals, the Centre for Software and IT Management (CSITM) at IIM Bangalore will host a panel discussion on ‘Is AI the Doctor Now? Will It Shrink or Widen Global Health Gaps in the Algorithmic Age?’, on 27 June 2025, at 19:00 Hrs (IST).

The webinar is set to feature Prof. Rema Padman, Trustees Professor of Management Science and Healthcare Informatics, H. John Heinz III College of Information Systems and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University; Prof. Rahul De’, Independent Consultant & Researcher; Retired Professor of Information Systems & Former Dean (Programmes), IIM Bangalore; Prof. Niraj K. Jha, Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Princeton University; Prof. Vikram Tiwari, Professor of Anesthesiology, Biomedical Informatics, and Biostatistics, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine; Professor of Management, Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University.

The one-hour webinar and subsequent Q&A session are valuable for both academics and professionals across diverse industries. To register for the event, please click HERE.

Abstract:

In the algorithmic age of medicine, a pressing question emerges: Is AI the doctor now? While artificial intelligence is increasingly integrated into healthcare systems—and has the potential to revolutionize diagnostics, treatment personalization, and public health messaging—it also raises urgent concerns about equity, sustainability, and reliability. Will the development of medical AI close healthcare gaps, or further widen global disparities? This webinar aims to explore these tensions and open a dialogue on the future of AI in medicine and its implications for global health.

Recent work in medical AI highlights the limitations of dominant top-down approaches, which rely on training extremely large multimodal language models with trillions of parameters. While these models perform well in many tasks, they often demand unsustainable energy resources and exhibit hallucinations in clinical settings. In contrast, new research supports bottom-up medical superintelligence—an approach that mimics the decentralized reasoning found in human societies. This includes ecosystems of interpretable AI assistants and self-managing agents based on counterfactual reasoning and enhanced with episodic memory, which have demonstrated improved accuracy and transparency in patient-specific decision-making.

Simultaneously, fine-tuned foundation models for specific medical modalities (e.g., text, signals, and images) have shown improved data efficiency, aligning with the World Health Organization’s revised guidelines for the responsible and ethical deployment of AI in healthcare.

The webinar will present a multidimensional vision of AI-enhanced healthcare, moving beyond monolithic AI systems toward collaborative, memory-rich agents embedded in real-world contexts. Topics will include AI’s impact on health literacy, digital therapeutics, and the augmentation (rather than replacement) of healthcare professionals. Participants will be invited to critically examine whether these innovations will narrow or widen global health disparities in the algorithmic age.

Speaker profiles:

Prof. Rema Padman

Prof. Rema Padman is the Trustees Professor of Management Science and Healthcare Informatics at the H. John Heinz III College of Information Systems and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She holds a B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, a Ph.D. in Operations Research from the University of Texas at Austin, and a National Library of Medicine Senior Fellowship in Applied Informatics from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Her research focuses on healthcare informatics, analytics, and operations for data-driven decision support, particularly in the context of clinical and consumer-facing IT interventions in healthcare delivery and management. A recent area of emphasis includes the development and evaluation of digital therapeutic approaches to address health literacy challenges, leveraging AI-driven mobile health (mHealth) games and user-generated visual social media content to educate and empower both children and adults. She is currently a member of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Roundtable on Health Literacy, with a focus on AI and patient health literacy. Prof. Padman has published extensively, serves on editorial boards of leading academic journals in Operations Research, Information Systems, and Healthcare, and advises numerous healthcare informatics and analytics projects. She has received multiple Best Paper awards, the IBM Faculty Award, and Teaching Excellence awards. She is an elected Fellow of the American Medical Informatics Association and the inaugural recipient of the Bufalini Prize - Health Technologies Sector (2023) for applications of AI in Medicine.

Prof. Rahul De’

Prof. Rahul De’ holds a B.Tech. from IIT Delhi, an MBA from FMS, University of Delhi, and a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. He has held significant administrative roles at IIM Bangalore, including Dean (Programmes). He began his academic journey as a doctoral student at the AI in Management Laboratory of the Katz Graduate School of Business, specializing in AI, Information Systems, and Operations Research. During this time, he studied under Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon and pioneers Bruce Buchanan and Harry Pople, known for their contributions to Expert Systems in medicine and healthcare. Prof. De’ later served as a faculty member at various business schools in the U.S. before joining IIM Bangalore, where he taught AI, Information Systems, and related subjects to MBA students, executives, and doctoral scholars for over two decades. He is a distinguished member of the Association for Information Systems (AIS) and has served on the boards of IDRBT, the Software Freedom Law Center (India), and IIMB. At IIMB, he chaired the Information Systems Area, the Computing Facilities Committee, the Digital Learning Initiative, and the Centre for Software and IT Management. He was also the first President of the India Chapter of AIS. Prof. De’ has authored four academic books, over 130 scholarly articles, and two editions of a textbook. His research spans AI, digital transformation, electronic government, open-source software, and telemedicine. He has received three international Best Paper awards, was named one of the Top Ten AI Researchers in India by Analytics India Magazine, and has held the Hewlett-Packard Chair Professorship at IIM Bangalore.

Prof. Niraj K Jha

Prof. Niraj K. Jha earned his B.Tech. in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering from IIT Kharagpur in 1981 and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1985. He is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Princeton University and has served as Associate Director of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. Prof. Jha is a Fellow of both the IEEE and ACM and was honored with the Distinguished Alumnus Award by IIT Kharagpur in 2014. He has co-authored five books, including two widely used textbooks, and has served as Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on VLSI Systems as well as Associate Editor for several other IEEE journals. He has authored or co-authored over 490 research papers, including 16 award-winning papers, and holds 29 patents. His current research interests lie in algorithms and architecture for machine learning, with applications in smart healthcare.

Prof. Vikram Tiwari

Prof. Vikram Tiwari is a Professor of Anesthesiology, Biomedical Informatics, and Biostatistics at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and a Professor of Management at the Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University. He also serves as the Senior Director of Surgical Analytics for Perioperative Services at Vanderbilt University Hospital. Previously, he was an Assistant Professor of Supply Chain Management at the University of Houston (2007–2012). At Vanderbilt, he teaches Healthcare Operations and Healthcare Analytics in the MBA and MMHC programs. He holds a doctorate in Decision Science and Operations Management from Indiana University Bloomington, along with degrees in Electronics & Communication Engineering and an MBA. His research focuses on operational improvement and capacity management in healthcare delivery systems. Prof. Tiwari was the Principal Investigator on a VA Houston grant to improve operating room efficiency and has co-investigated numerous other grants and healthcare projects. He has mentored a wide range of students and professionals, including medical school students, postdoctoral fellows, junior faculty, and doctoral candidates in engineering and management. He has published over 40 research articles in leading journals across operations management and healthcare domains. At Vanderbilt, he heads the Operations Research Group in the Department of Anesthesiology and supports systems engineering initiatives across the Vanderbilt University Medical Center.