Speaker 0: This is where health care leadership comes together. Becker's sixteenth annual meeting brings more than 3,500 hospital and health system executives and nearly 800 speakers to Chicago April. This year's event includes keynote conversations with Dallas Cowboys legend Troy Aikman and former president George w Bush. For the agenda and event details, visit beckershospitalreview.com and click on the events tab in the upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you in Chicago.

Speaker 1: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Becker's Healthcare Podcast. I'm Scott King. Thrilled today to be joined by a very special guest, Pranita Allegheny, administrator and assistant professor of healthcare administration over at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. Pranita, thank you so much for doing this.

Appreciate it. How are you?

Speaker 2: Hi. Thanks, Scott. Thanks for the opportunity to be here, and I'm really excited to to chat with you.

Speaker 1: Excited to have you. We have a lot of big topics and and trends in in health care to get to. Really gonna lean on your expertise for those. But, before we get to those, I was wondering if you could please just tell us a little bit about your your background and your experience in health care.

Speaker 2: Certainly. So I'm Prineetha Laginti. I work as an administrator at Mayo Clinic in Arizona, where my responsibilities include supporting our advanced AI and innovation hub as well as our Arizona enablement hub. My world really lives at the intersection of health care operations, digital transformation, and AI. And as far as sort of coming into this work, you know, honestly, Scott, I I didn't really come into health care because of technology.

I came into it because of the people. Very early on, I was a volunteer at a safety net hospital and got to see some some realities of health care. I was able to see and witness how powerful health care can be when systems work for patients and also how it can be painful when things don't work, and that really fueled sort of my experience. I initially wanted to be a physician. And now over a decade later at Mayo Clinic as an administrator, I've had the chance to work across clinical practice, so our really our operational front, research as well as enterprise initiatives.

And today, I'm really proud that, I get to lead the work around digital health and advanced AI, and I'm really proud of, being able to translate those big ideas that everyone has, into things that actually make someone's day a little bit easier, whether that's our patients or our staff.

Speaker 1: Well, thanks so much, Puneet. It's great to hear about all that that background info you shared and and great to hear about your people first focus, you know, even dealing with all this emerging tech we have now in health care. So the the first topic I I wanted to ask you about, the first question I have for you is what opportunities and headwinds do you have your eye on right now in health care?

Speaker 2: Yeah. I think one of the biggest opportunities we have right now is really having more honest conversations about how AI should show up in health care. At Mayo Clinic, our approach is very intentional. It's decentralized, staff led, and clinician driven with a focus on governance, equity, ethics, and transparency. And quite honestly, we're implementing AI to enhance that clinical decision making, empowering our patient outcomes, and streamlining care.

Really emphasizing how AI empowers, not replaces our our people, but really taking the friction out of the system by reducing burden, improving our workflows, personalizing care for our patients, and expanding access, to high quality care.

Speaker 1: Well, let me ask you a follow-up there, Pernitha. How involved should the clinician be then? What what do you have them doing with the the different AI uses?

Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's very dependent on the use case of the technology. Right? So if we're thinking about technology like ambient listening and documentation, which was a a huge trend last year, we certainly want them to be at the table, because at the end of the day, it's their workflow that's impacted. So you want them to be engaged in both from a product development design perspective, but also from an implementation, and where is the right opportunity for us to engage this within the workflow.

Speaker 1: Absolutely. And I also wanted to ask you, how are you thinking about growth and adding value to your organization right now?

Speaker 2: So I personally, think about growth, less is doing more and more so of doing the things better and being more connected. And, certainly, Mayo Clinic differentiates itself through discovery, delivery, and diffusion, and my role often sits right in the middle of that. Right? A lot of my work is focused on translation. And how do you take something that's cutting edge technology, whether it's a care enabling AI model that can predict your likelihood of a disease or a digital care capability and make it usable, make it trusted and scalable within our clinical environments.

Right? And when that growth is done right, I think, really, innovation stops feeling more of a project and really starts to feel about how we're shifting the paradigm of care, being delivered.

Speaker 1: What's one risk for investment that you think is worth making this year in 2026 here?

Speaker 2: So I think, certainly, the investment can never be wrong when you invest in new people, not just technology or platform. And I know it's always tempting. We we love the latest technology, and we wanna focus on the technology itself. But you also have to make sure that your workforce is ready for that, and that includes things like educating your workforce, having, governance structures in place, and bringing your staff and care teams along in that process. And, certainly, I think, you know, the the trend for 2026 is, with a lot of conversation around agentic AI.

And agentic AI will only be successful when the people are used to help shape that solution and can then grow in the adoption of an agent. So if I was, to to comment on the investment, I think the investment is people.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's a good point too because once, you know, once you you procure an agent or or use it somehow, you don't just have it. There's a lot more work to be done, you know, to to foster these agents and set them up in a way to help your system or or any business. Is that is that kinda what you're doing too?

Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean, agents or any technology for that matter is not a one and done. Right? Like, a product is a living product. You have to make enhancements.

You have to continue to to grow and evolve as your needs of your end user, your customer, your organization change. So I still I I would strongly say that we need to be able to be nimble to meet the needs of health care today, but also be prepared for the health care of tomorrow.

Speaker 1: And where do you see the best opportunities for growth in the future?

Speaker 2: So I'm really, excited about air delivery, that's very human centric in design, and I think you could probably, appreciate that from my previous responses as well. And we're really focused on building capabilities that span our physical, digital, and virtual care, but really touching everything from our three shielded approach of an institution as practice, research, and education. And, again, my personal belief is that the real opportunity is when we have insights that form that connective tissue between all of those shields and between all of those capabilities. And so I think a part of that growth and the opportunity is really learning fast, on how we can personalize care better and really extend our expertise beyond traditional walls, while still providing that hug and human connection that we're so used to and and desire from any health care institution.

Speaker 1: You know, since you mentioned that, you know, that get people first focus you have and investing in people, I I wanted to get your take on how you think you've evolved as a leader and maybe any any great leadership advice that someone shared with you in your career so far.

Speaker 2: Yeah. No. That's a a great question. I would say I started off more as that frontline leader, as a a manager of a clinical practice, early in my career. And at some point in your career journey, as every leader will tell you, is health care is about the people for the people, and, certainly, you can have digital or any other investments, but you're still serving people at the end of the day.

But I will share a quick quote from one of my wonderful mentors that I've had on the leadership journey, which is hone your craft. And that has really rung true to who I am and my leadership style is irrespective of whether you're in a clinical practice, whether you're leading digital, whether you're working with an AI team. I think it's really important to hone your craft in that moment in service of those that you serve, which is your patients.

Speaker 1: I think that's some great advice. Great quote. Thank you so much for sharing, Priti, and thank you for joining us on the podcast and for a great discussion. Look forward to working with you again soon.

Speaker 2: Thanks, Scott.