Margaret Lozovatsky, MD, is a pediatric hospitalist, a nationally recognized leader in health care informatics, and the vice president of digital health at the AMA. In an episode of the “AMA STEPS Forward® Podcast,” she shared her experience in making technology work better for physicians and the patients they care for.
Double-boarded in pediatrics and clinical informatics, Dr. Lozovatsky helps shape how technology is integrated into care environments across the country.
“I lead a team that focuses on supporting physicians in the use of technology in all health care settings,” she explained, “including ambulatory, inpatient, ED, as well as less traditional modalities in the digital health environment.”
Her past job titles include chief medical information officer (CMIO) and chief health informatics officer. Both of those roles have changed over the years, but those experiences have made Dr. Lozovatsky a vital conduit between two very different worlds.
She is quick to distinguish traditional information technology departments from clinical informaticists. Originally focused on helping colleagues manage early EHR interfaces, informaticists now help shape systemwide strategies and designs.
While IT fixes hardware and software, she explained, informaticists are physicians who ensure new tools in development actually make sense in real-world clinical settings.
“It’s critical to engage the clinical informaticist for any issues that touch the patients, or the clinicians where it involves any sort of medical knowledge,” she said, noting that while IT must certainly be engaged, clinical informaticists must function as liaisons between IT and clinicians.
The CME module, “Introduction to the Business of Medicine: Information and Technology in Health Care,” is enduring material and designated by the AMA for a maximum of 0.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ .
The module is part of the AMA Ed Hub™, an online learning platform that brings together high-quality CME, maintenance of certification, and educational content from trusted sources, all in one place—with activities relevant to you, automated credit tracking, and reporting for some states and specialty boards.
Learn more about AMA CME accreditation.
Bridging medicine and technology
“I started in the era of bringing technology into health care, when CMIOs were often responsible for implementing EHRs. Folks who would walk around and help people figure out which buttons to push,” Dr. Lozovatsky said. “But now CMIOs often have a seat at the executive table, looking at best practices for how to bring new technology to health care.”
Early technology design was not optimal, she said, pointing out that while website and app design is now very sophisticated, there is still a lot of work to be done to make similar improvements in EHRs. Doing so makes the systems more intuitive and improves care.
She cited her own recent experience of being able to instantly access the full medical record of a non-English-speaking patient who had arrived from another state.
“Within minutes, I was able to get the record and get all of the information,” she said. “Those are experiences we didn’t have before.”
Dive deeper:
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AI in the exam room
The podcast conversation naturally turned to augmented intelligence (AI)—often called artificial intelligence—and its growing role in health care. While generative AI may be new to the public, Dr. Lozovatsky noted that clinical prediction models and similar tools have been in use for years. What’s changing is the volume of data and its complexity.
“No human brain can process all the pieces of data,” she said. “AI tools can be tailored to our specialty to present information at the right time and place.”
AI should support, not supplant, clinical judgment, and successful integration requires rigorous testing, health equity considerations, and—most critically—input from physicians.
“It’s not just about knowing how AI works,” she said. “Our clinical judgment is at the center of all of this, but these tools can augment that and allow us to practice at the top of our license.”
From AI implementation to EHR adoption and usability, the AMA is fighting to make technology work for physicians, ensuring that it is an asset to doctors—not a burden.
The big takeaway
Dr. Lozovatsky’s story helps demonstrate that doctors who grasp and take advantage of both the clinic and the cloud will be in best-position to shape the future of care and improve the nation’s health. She said that physicians should become familiar with the tech tools available, speak up about their needs and collaborate with informatics professionals.
“It’s important to recognize how far we’ve come, how much technology has helped bring information to us,” she said, “and that we as clinicians have a critical role in helping to continue to improve the way that technology works for us.”
This episode is part of the AMA’s “Introduction to the Business of Medicine” course on the AMA Ed Hub. This curated selection of AMA educational resources includes a variety of introductory Business of Medicine topics to help practicing physicians take a more proactive role in shaping their own futures in medicine. You can accumulate up to 11.5 CME credits while learning at your own pace, as well as earn an exclusive AMA-members-only certificate available upon completion of all listed activities.
