From AI Labor to ROI and Hallucinations: What to Expect at INVEST Digital Health Dallas

AI In Healthcare: What Executives Should Expect at INVEST Digital Health

There's a firehose of AI headlines. This conference filters the signal. INVEST Digital Health lands Thursday, September 18 at Pegasus Park in Dallas in partnership with Health Wildcatters. Here's a concise brief so you can plan which sessions to prioritize and what to listen for.

The Dawn of AI Labor: Productivity, Operational Efficiency, and Workforce Transformation

Speakers: Keith Figlioli (LRVHealth), Jess Botros (Ardent Health), Dr. Steve Miff (PCCI), Abhinav Shashank (Innovaccer).

• Focus: Turning AI into measurable labor capacity, throughput gains, and cost reduction without breaking clinical workflows.
• What to press for: Baselines, pilots, and "time-to-value" in weeks-not years. Clear ownership between IT, clinical ops, and finance.
• Watch-outs: Shadow AI, data quality debt, and hidden change-management costs that erode ROI.

First, Do No Harm: Building the Guardrails for Responsible AI

Speakers: Dr. Hubert Zajicek (Health Wildcatters), Dr. Ruben Amarasingham (Pieces), Theresa McDonnell (Duke University Health System), Alya Sulaiman (Datavant).

• Focus: Governance models that align privacy, safety, and speed. Model risk management, monitoring, and incident response.
• What to press for: Alignment to the NIST AI Risk Management Framework and FDA guidance for AI/ML-enabled tools in clinical use here.
• Decision criteria: Human-in-the-loop checkpoints, audit trails, model cards, and a clear path for post-deployment monitoring.

Fireside Chat: Rural Providers' Role in AI Adoption

Speaker: Dr. Dave Newman (Sanford Health), chief medical officer for virtual care at the largest rural health system in the country.

• Focus: Extending scarce workforce capacity across large geographies with virtual care, documentation support, and triage tools.
• What to press for: Connectivity issues, model performance on limited data, and sustainable funding models.

Fireside Chat: De-risking Early-Stage AI at Pegasus Park

Speaker: David Snow (Pegasus Park).

• Focus: How to de-risk investments, accelerate growth, and boost returns by surrounding early-stage companies with talent, infrastructure, and connectivity.
• What to press for: Practical pathways from pilot to scale and how health systems can plug into the ecosystem without adding complexity.

Beyond the Buzzwords: Evaluating AI Tools' Efficacy and ROI

Speakers: Ngoc-Anh Nguyen, MD (Houston Methodist), Eric Levine (Avalere Health), Michael Kalishman (Sentara Health), Nick Culbertson (Techstars AI Health Baltimore).

• Focus: Proving value with third-party validation, peer-reviewed evidence, and operational outcomes.
• Metrics that matter: Minutes saved per clinician per shift, avoided denials, throughput lift, reduced LOS, readmission impact, patient experience scores, and net cost-to-serve.
• What to press for: Counterfactuals, external validation, and cost of model maintenance over time.

How Do AI Startups Stand Out to Investors in a Crowded Market?

Speakers: Neil Patel (Redesign Health), Rohit Nuwal (TELUS Global Ventures), Maddie Hilal (Oak HC/FT), Vickram Pradhan (Sopris Venture Capital).

• What wins: Clear clinical use cases, seamless integration with EHRs and payer workflows, unit economics tied to payer/provider incentives, and early evidence.
• Signals to avoid: Generic copilots with no edge, untested reimbursement theories, and weak data rights.
• Bonus: How to partner with health systems without stalling in procurement purgatory.

How Is Healthcare Dealing with AI Hallucinations?

Speakers: Gigi Yuen (Cohere), Soumi Saha (Premier Inc.), Jennifer Goldsack (DiMe), Randi Seigel (Manatt, Phelps & Phillips).

• Risks: Patient safety, clinician trust, and regulatory exposure.
• Mitigations: Retrieval-augmented generation, strict prompt guardrails, human-in-the-loop, and automated model monitoring with escalation paths.
• What to press for: Documented failure modes, rate of hallucinations in real use, and how the system degrades safely.

Pitch Perfect: AI in the Clinic

Judges: Jon George (Flare Capital), Erica Murdock (Unseen Capital), Nirban Singh (Healthworx Ventures).

• Selection lens: Daily provider pain points, regulatory clarity, integration simplicity, and pay-for-performance outcomes.
• What to spot: Real-world pilots, credible go-to-market, and proof of repeatable value across sites.

Why This Matters for Healthcare Leaders

• Set a 90-day plan: Pick one AI labor use case and lock measurable goals with operations and finance.
• Stand up governance: Define decision rights, risk tiers, and model monitoring before scaling pilots.
• Demand proof: Third-party validation, reproducible metrics, and total cost over the model lifecycle.

If you're building internal capability, consider curated training for clinical, operations, and data teams. Explore AI courses by role here.

Bottom line: This event is built for decision-makers. Use it to validate your roadmap, pressure-test vendors, and set a practical operating model for AI that improves care, reduces friction, and pays for itself.