Brava Health’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr Michael Karch of the Mammoth Orthopedic Institute, explores how resistance to artificial intelligence in healthcare is often misunderstood. Rather than rejecting technology itself, many clinicians are responding to how it is positioned and applied in real-world practice.
I recently sat down with two longtime colleagues, one an orthopedic surgeon and the other a family physician.
Both were frustrated.
“This won’t work in healthcare,” one said.
“A machine cannot replace me as a physician,” said the other.
The reaction wasn’t subtle. It was real, raw and visceral. It is also exactly the kind of signal worth paying attention to.
In data science, resistance like this is not noise. It is signal. It highlights where trust breaks down, where models are misaligned with users, and where the narrative has drifted from reality.
This is not resistance to technology. It is resistance to the wrong idea of it.
In 2009, Netflix offered $1 million for a 10% improvement in its recommendation engine. Not a breakthrough or reinvention, just ten percent. The company understood that small improvements, applied across a large system, can fundamentally change behaviour.
Crucially, they did not remove the user. They empowered the user. Better signal, same decision-maker.
Healthcare now has the opportunity to do the same.
Today’s system is still largely based on episodic care, snapshots in time defined by visits, tests and isolated data points. Decisions are made on incomplete information, shaped by experience and constrained by fragmentation. It works, but it leaves gaps.
The future is not about replacing clinicians. It is about augmenting them.
Machines excel at scale, speed and pattern recognition, processing longitudinal data, identifying trends and assigning probabilities across populations. Clinicians bring context, judgement and meaning.
This is not competition. It is synergy.
The opportunity lies in augmented intelligence, where data surfaces what matters sooner, and clinicians decide what to do with it. Not prescriptive, but supportive. Not replacing expertise but amplifying it.
At Brava Health, the focus is on removing the friction that surrounds clinical decision-making. By unlocking and organising longitudinal patient data, fragmented records can be transformed into a continuous and actionable picture of patient health. Connecting clinical notes, diagnostics, wearables and outcomes into a single intelligent layer ensures the right information is available when it is needed most.
The resistance seen today is not a barrier. It is guidance. It shows where systems must be clearer, more thoughtful and more aligned with real-world practice.
Moving from episodic care to continuous signal does not just improve accuracy. It improves timing. And in medicine, timing is critical.
At scale, even small improvements in timing and decision support can compound. That is where meaningful transformation begins.
Dr Karch notes: “Healthcare doesn’t need AI that replaces clinicians, it needs AI that quietly removes the friction around them. At Brava Health, our focus is on helping healthcare providers unlock and organise longitudinal patient data, turning fragmented records into a continuous, actionable picture of patient health. By connecting clinical notes, diagnostics, wearables and outcomes into a single intelligent layer, we make the right information available at the right time, so clinicians can focus on judgement, not data wrangling. When the right information arrives earlier, clinicians can intervene sooner and deliver better care.”
Brava Health is a private company that seeks to create a future where everyone is equipped with greater health clarity, agility, and foresight through truly individualized care experiences across the spectrum of needs: critical care, wellness, and longevity.
