Registration: https://tinyurl.com/MassAITC-November2026-webinar
Abstract:
Ambient generative AI scribes are spreading across U.S. health systems faster than evidence about their effects can be generated. A recent meta-analysis found that only 0.4% of studies of AI in medicine were real-world randomized trials, and the stakes of that gap are highest for older adults, who carry the greatest burdens of multimorbidity, polypharmacy, and cognitive impairment and are the most exposed to any change in how clinicians diagnose, prescribe, and communicate.
This webinar opens with a brief introduction to APEX-ADRD (Accelerating Platforms for Evaluating and eXecuting AI Lifecycles in Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias), an NIA-funded AI and Technology Collaboratory based at UCLA that serves investigators and technology developers nationwide and supports pilot projects across the full AI lifecycle, from AI-ready data and model development to pragmatic trials and post-deployment monitoring. Dr. Mafi will then present findings from a pragmatic randomized trial of two ambient AI scribes at UCLA Health involving 238 physicians and more than 70,000 visits, including reduced physician cognitive load, time savings with one of the two tools, and clinician-reported inaccuracies, along with preliminary data on the more than 20,000 patients aged 65 and older seen during the trial. He will describe a proposed program of research that pairs the UCLA trial with an independent trial at UW Health and applies causal machine learning and replication science to ask whether, for whom, and through what mechanisms AI scribes improve or harm prescribing safety, acute care use, and patient experience in older adults, including those living with cognitive impairment. The talk closes with implications for senior living and long-term care settings, where documentation burden, staffing shortages, and medication complexity converge and where ambient documentation remains largely untested.
Biography:
- John Mafi, MD, MPH
- John N. Mafi, MD, MPH, is Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and an Affiliated Adjunct Physician Policy Researcher at RAND. He is Contact Principal Investigator of APEX-ADRD, an NIA-funded AI and Technology Collaboratory based at UCLA, and Co-Director of INOVAi (Innovations and Outcomes Validation of AI), UCLA Health’s AI evaluation center, where he co-leads pragmatic randomized trials of generative AI technologies in real-world settings. His NIA-funded research focuses on measuring and improving the value and safety of care for older adults, including low-value care and potentially inappropriate prescribing. A practicing general internist at UCLA Health and a teaching attending on UCLA’s geriatrics service, he trained at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and holds an MPH from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.