1127: AI, Public Health, and the Future of Proactive Care

John Sheehan (0:00): This is Public Health Review Morning Edition for Friday, 05/15/2026. I'm John Sheehan with news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. Today, what happens when artificial intelligence, clinical care, and public health finally start working together? Doctor. Umer Shah, Chief Medical Officer at JAN Health, that's J A A N, and the AI powered care management platform Family, as in P H Amily, will discuss the future of proactive health care and the role AI can play connecting patients, providers, and public health systems.

John Sheehan (0:33): Drawing on decades of experience as a physician, former health commissioner of Harris County, Texas, and former Washington State Health Secretary, Doctor. Shah explains why health care must move beyond the walls of hospitals and clinics to better understand what's happening in patients' everyday lives. He'll also explain Family, John Health's AI powered care management platform, and how real time communication, pattern recognition, and predictive analytics can help providers identify health issues before they become crises. Doctor. Umer Shah, welcome to the show.

Unknown Speaker (1:04): Hey, thanks for having me.

John Sheehan (1:05): Doctor. Shah, tell us about your role in John Health and about Family, the platform.

Umer Shah (1:11): Yeah. First first of all, John thanks so much for the question. I'm gonna try to do my best not to confuse John and John. John, your name and John the platform. John Health is the company that I joined in January.

Umer Shah (1:25): Very excited to join. John Health, the word John actually means dear or beloved. And the notion is that we have to really be thinking about the people that we care about. Our family members who obviously are so critical to everything about our lives that makes us so, both makes us happy but also we're concerned about on a daily basis especially with six out of ten Americans having a chronic health condition. The family is the platform and it's with a PH.

Umer Shah (1:56): So PH, Emily and our platform is very much about proactive care management and really this concept that you may be aware of and many of the listeners will is that health happens not just in the healthcare system, it happens in the community. Unfortunately, the vast majority of time that we spend taking care of our patients is really done in the healthcare system. And we oftentimes lose out on what this rich amount of information that's happening in their lives every single day when they're, what I say, live, learn, work, worship, play, where things happen in the community. And that's what family is all about.

Unknown Speaker (2:36): I see. And so what does the platform do? How does it work?

Umer Shah (2:41): So when I think about how best to describe family, it's this connection of the physician and the provider with the patient, the family member, all of the components of the healthcare system, as well as the people that we serve. And it's proactive care management that's enabled by AI technologies that really advances it. But what it really does is it puts together this real importance of high-tech and high touch where it's about technology and the enablement of that technology but also high touch where it connects that provider with the patient so that everything that's happening in the community with the patient, whether it's a housing issue or transportation issue, whether it's I'm having shortness of breath going up the stairs, it's connecting those kinds of symptoms back into the clinical care team so they can do proactive care management that's powered and delivered through the power of AI, which is so super exciting right now and allows us to really advance the work that's necessary in order to make people healthy.

John Sheehan (3:50): Sure. And communication and increasing that communication is, I would argue, pretty key to managing chronic disease. You've gotta keep your patients connected and coming to you to treat them.

Umer Shah (4:04): Well, you know, I think you're absolutely right. So for me, as both as you you know, I was a clinical care provider for twenty plus years both in the primary care setting as well as an emergency department setting in Texas especially. And what I really learned over time was that patients oftentimes we would get just get a small snippet of what was happening in their lives. And that's the snippet that would be so important to us in terms of data. But what really was happening in the patient's lives where they were shopping or they were out with their family or they were having a meal or they were traveling or going to do something in their education or academic setting or in their work setting, they would be doing things that would honestly impact their health.

Umer Shah (4:55): And we would get as doctors a very small idea about what was happening. So when I added not just clinical care, but public health and population health to my portfolio and really over time, this twenty plus year career is both the health commissioner down in Harris County, the third largest county in The US and Texas, as well as in Washington state as the health secretary. What I learned is that there was a disconnect between what was happening in the clinical care setting and what was happening in public health population health setting. We saw it during the pandemic where things everybody came together, but then after the pandemic and prior to the pandemic, we sort of go back to our own corners. And so I think it's so critical that we as public health leaders are working closely with those who are in clinical care to understand advances in technology and also understand that in order to really improve the health of our population, we have to be connected in a way with the clinical care activities that are occurring in the medical system.

Umer Shah (6:02): And if we don't do that, unfortunately we're going to be behind the eight ball. That's why I took this position. And I will tell you when I took this position, there was another part of this that was I felt that government in some sense had gotten stuck. And we oftentimes are sort of talking past each other. And while I have an incredible amount of respect for my colleagues and I still consider myself a public health practitioner, I really do think very strongly about this notion that working outside of that traditional public health system really allows me an ability to bring in all of the activities that are so important, clinical care, technology, the patient and the patient's family and the patient's ecosystem and the patient's health, all of that alongside with payers who are really ultimately holding the dollars in terms of how do you actually manage the care of that patient, all that comes together.

Umer Shah (7:02): And I feel super excited to be in a place where I can actually help influence that. And that's what this is all about.

Unknown Speaker (7:09): Yeah. And what should state health leaders know about the platform?

Umer Shah (7:14): Yeah. What I what I'd love to do is to be able to have an opportunity for state health leaders to be thinking about one, AI in general, right? Health AI is so important for the work that we do in public health. And we have made some advances as you know, I'm now on the as a public health advisor to the Coalition for Health AI CHI and also had been part of a task force for ASPPH that really was about responsible and ethical use of AI in public health settings. And I think that there is something that we need to really be overall thinking about as state health leaders and even public health leaders in general, which is Health AI is here.

Umer Shah (7:57): AI technology is not tomorrow, it is today. And we have to help influence that and help be part of the the being at the table, if you will, so we understand what are the things that we can do to make our work better as well as understand how we can do that in a way that allows us to advance that technology. The federal government, as you know, has invested a lot right now when it comes to AI and technology and innovation. There's the Rural Health Transformation Program. That's a significant amount of dollars that are coming to state and locals across all 50 states.

Umer Shah (8:33): There's a lot of opportunity there. We cannot be away from that table. We have to take it head on. And then when it comes to family itself, our work is really very much how do we connect patients with providers? And you may as a state health person say, well, that's not my stuff.

Umer Shah (8:52): But ultimately I do think it is because when we say that six out of ten people, a vast majority of people will know somebody who has a chronic health condition like diabetes, high blood pressure, a mental health condition, a challenge when it comes to heart disease or something related to their everyday activities related to health, we can do a better job of being about health and wellness but we can only do that if we can connect with the patient, with their provider. And that's what family is all about. So if I were a state health leader, what I would say is, the kinds of platforms and products that are out there, there are a lot of vendors out there, a lot of people, a lot of companies out there that are gonna sell you the moon. What you wanna do is to really think about those who have been out there for a long period of time, who have the knowledge and know how and are really caring about not just the provider and the system, but also the patients who ultimately make up that system. And together we can be really effective.

Umer Shah (9:52): So I would say explore it, come to our website, family.com, really learn more about it. And what can we do together to enable AI technology and to reduce costs in our system and make it more efficient and effective, while also recognizing the importance of patient care as we do our public health work. I think all that comes together.

John Sheehan (10:14): Sure. And so much of the work in public health deals with sort of the macro lens of looking at population level health. And in order to do that, you need the right data inputs. And AI is sort of uniquely suited to to help that process. Can you talk a little bit more about sort of how how folks should think about the role of AI in health?

Umer Shah (10:38): Yeah. You know, what's what's really exciting about family is that we have 20,000,000 healthcare interactions of conversations that have been happening back and forth messaging from their patients to their healthcare providers over the years. And that's really an incredibly rich amount of data. And what we're starting to see are patterns where the patient is now exhibiting some potential start of symptoms before the provider would otherwise know. And so it's almost this forecasting and enablement of what we call surveillance of the healthcare systems like the systems of medical condition, like I'm having shortness of breath or I'm having chest pain.

Umer Shah (11:21): And AI really takes it to another level because now you can analyze it, you can do things with it, and you can really start to come up with pattern recognition. So now the provider and the providers team can do a markedly better job of forecasting which patients are going to get in trouble, and how do I intensify my efforts or my team's efforts with that. And that when you blow that up to a higher level of state health, what that really comes back to is, again, AI technology enables public health agencies to be markedly smarter. I will say there are two issues that are happening in the public health system right now. One is we have too much of something and the other is we have too little of something.

Umer Shah (12:03): The too much is we have too much data, too much information, too much of overload and we don't have enough people and the tools to enable those people to be able to do their jobs better. And so what we gotta do is to think about technologies and solutions and match them with this overload of information and that's where good platforms, good technologies, and good AI can really bring that together and allow it to take it to the next level. So super excited about this. It's the future of health. It's the future of health and it's happening today.

Unknown Speaker (12:38): And it's another good example, and there are a few of these in public health, but of the public sector and the private sector sort of joining collaboratively to make something work. Because as you sort of mentioned in public health, are limited resources and that's when the private sector can kind of step in and help out with that equation.

Umer Shah (12:58): Yeah, I will tell you over my decades in public health, would always wish, I wish I had a technology or I wish I had a partner, I wish I had a widget or something. And then it was amazing to me how just right next door in the private sector building, there was that stuff, that technology or that widget and we just didn't know how to connect with. And I always have said that it's so important for private sector to step up, just in emergencies, but in blue sky day, but it's also absolutely critical for public health agencies to recognize the importance of the private sector and all segments of working in partnership to be able to really say what are the kinds of things that we can do together to better the health of the people that we serve, whether it's the individual patient, or you zoom that up to the population level, we've got to be able to do that together. And that's why public private partnership is not just a buzzword, it is a necessity for how we do our business and how we do it well.

Unknown Speaker (13:58): Well, Doctor. Umair Shah, thanks so much for joining us.

Unknown Speaker (14:00): Thanks for having me. Been a lot of fun.

John Sheehan (14:03): Doctor. Umair Shah is Chief Medical Officer at John Health and the AI powered care management platform, Family, as in P H A M I L Y. He's also a former state health official for the Washington State Department of Health. Stay informed on the latest federal developments with the View from Washington, D. C.

John Sheehan (14:22): Segment on this podcast, which offers timely updates from Capitol Hill. Government affairs team provides public health policy analysis, federal updates, and insights on emerging actions and what they mean for state and territorial public health. So be sure to subscribe and never miss an episode. ASTHO Newsletter subscription options feature updates, analysis, resources, and events on pressing issues in state and territorial public health. Subscribe to receive legislative alerts, news releases, public health weekly, events, and FIG connections.

John Sheehan (14:54): This has been Public Health Review Morning Edition. I'm John Sheehan for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.