Defensible AI: What You Have to Say When the Regulator Calls (Chris Hutchins, Healthcare AI Leader)

Chris Hutchins spent more than 25 years inside some of the largest health systems in the country, including running enterprise analytics at Northwell Health, where he rebuilt the entire data warehouse. Today he advises boards, investors, and CEOs on how to deploy AI that holds up when a regulator, auditor, or attorney asks them to defend it. In this episode, Chris and Harrison Painter get into the unglamorous work most companies skip: the data underneath the AI. Chris explains why healthcare's data problem is a byproduct of growth by acquisition, why the "if you build it, they will come" approach keeps producing tools nobody asked for, and the single test he now applies to any AI project: does it give time back to the patient and the provider? Then they take on the word everyone uses and few can define. What makes an AI decision defensible? Chris's answer is simple and hard. If a decision gets made by a system and someone calls you, can you say what the decision was, who made it, and how, easily and quickly? Most leaders today cannot. You will also hear why "human in the loop" should be "human IS the loop," what the trolley problem reveals about AI and judgment, and the one question every CEO should ask their team about AI before a regulator does. Practical, honest, and grounded in real operating reps.