INTERVIEW – AI spurring healthcare shift from treatment to prevention: Expert

• AI tools and regulated wearable devices offer real-time health insights, reducing the need for routine in-person visits and allowing doctors to focus on critical care, says Saxon

GENEVA

Imagine a healthcare system that doesn’t wait for illness. That is the future Dr. Leslie Saxon sees – one where artificial intelligence and wearable technologies work in tandem to keep people healthy, not just manage disease after it strikes.

Speaking to Anadolu on the sidelines of the AI for Good Summit recently held in Geneva, Saxon outlined her vision for a radically different healthcare model – one that is proactive, personalized, and less dependent on traditional infrastructure.

“A lot of the expense in the healthcare system is once people already get sick,” said Saxon, executive director of the University of Southern California’s Center for Body Computing, emphasizing the high costs of treatment compared to prevention.

She believes AI-powered tools and regulated wearable devices can offer real-time health insights, reducing the need for routine in-person visits and allowing doctors to focus on critical care.

“It’s real-time. You get immediate insights. It doesn’t require bricks and mortar,” she said. “Medical experts like me … could just focus on the people who really need care.”

A central issue, she argued, is access to health knowledge, most of which remains locked behind medical degrees and healthcare systems. AI, she emphasized, can change that.

“We need to jailbreak that knowledge to smartphones and AI devices … and help you understand: Where am I at the moment? What is my trajectory, and how do I maintain myself?”

High-stakes testing grounds

Saxon’s team is already putting this philosophy to the test in extreme settings – elite sports and military operations – where injuries are common and resilience is critical.

Whether it’s NFL athletes or special forces soldiers, she said, the aim is the same: prevent breakdown before it happens.

She explained that the process begins by working closely with each group to identify specific health needs and risks. That information is used to design tailored monitoring tools that assess physical “load” over time, detect early warning signs, and deliver actionable insights.

“A lot of the groups we’re working with, they have 100% injury rate,” she said. “Eventually, if you do certain things, you’re going to age, you’re going to get disease, or you’re going to get injured.”

These tools collect data passively and use AI to analyze patterns unique to each user. “Everybody gets their own because everybody is different.”

Risk of bad data

But Saxon is also clear-eyed about the risks, warning that digital tools are only as good as the data they rely on.

If that data is inaccurate or tampered with, the consequences could be dangerous, especially in high-pressure environments like hospitals.

She raised a chilling hypothetical: what if a cyberattack altered lab results in an emergency room?

“They could weaponize me (as doctor). I could treat people and hurt them because I had bad information,” she said.

That is why Saxon insists AI tools in health care must be rigorously tested and secured against manipulation. Patient safety, she stressed, must remain paramount.

Still, she cautioned against regulating too early. Overregulation, she argued, can stifle innovation before technologies have matured.

“If you govern it, restrict it too early, it’s never going to be great,” she said. “Sometimes these bureaucracies … keep the best and brightest people out, the best products off the market.”

For Saxon, AI offers the opportunity to shift health care’s entire paradigm – from reactive “sick care” to continuous, individualized health preservation. But for that shift to succeed, she said, the technology must give individuals the tools and understanding to manage their own well-being in real time.

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