[Recorded June 30, 2026]
Despite decades of investment, healthcare has been slow to embrace a digital transformation. Inefficiencies and problems with electronic health records persist. With the rise of AI, is healthcare finally at a turning point?
Join us for a CHM Live book talk with Robert Wachter, MD, chair of the Department of Medicine at UCSF and one of the nation’s leading voices on healthcare innovation. In his new book, A Giant Leap: How AI Is Transforming Healthcare and What That Means for Our Future, Wachter explores how artificial intelligence is beginning to reshape medicine—from reducing administrative burden and clinician burnout to improving diagnosis, communication, and patient care.
But AI’s power to read and synthesize vast amounts of medical data comes with risk. Wachter and journalist Katie Hafner will discuss both the promise and the peril of AI in healthcare.
What You’ll Experience:
-A clear look at how AI is already changing healthcare—and where it’s headed next.
-Insight into opportunities and risks of AI in high-stakes, real-world settings.
-A thoughtful discussion of trust, human judgment, and the future of the doctor–patient relationship.
FEATURED PARTICIPANTS
Moderator
Katie Hafner
Author of nine books, including Cyberpunk and Where Wizards Stay up Late; contributor to The New York Times; Host and Executive Producer, Lost Women of Science Podcast
Katie Hafner is a journalist and author. She is host and coexecutive producer of the Lost Women of Science podcast. Hafner writes frequently for The New York Times and The Washington Post and is the author of a memoir, novel, and six non-fiction books, including Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet (with Matthew Lyon), The Well: Love, Death, and Real Life in the Seminal Online Community, and Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier (with John Markoff). Her first novel, The Boys, was published in July 2022.
Speaker
Robert Wachter, MD
Professor and Chair of the UCSF Department of Medicine; Author of A Giant Leap: How AI is Transforming Healthcare and What That Means for Our Future
Robert Wachter, MD, is professor and chair of the UCSF Department of Medicine and author of 300 articles and six books, including the bestseller A Giant Leap: How AI is Transforming Healthcare and What That Means for Our Future. He coined the term “hospitalist” and is often considered the father of the hospitalist field. An elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, Modern Healthcare magazine ranked him among the 50 most influential physician-executives in the US more than a dozen times; he was #1 on the list in 2015.
Catalog Number: 300000324
Acquisition Number: 2026.0151
About The Author
