Doctors demand tech. Nurses should too | Mary Varghese Presti, Microsoft
Tuesday, September 29, 2026
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The speaker reports that Intermountain's time motion study found bedside nurses spend up to thirty percent of a twelve-hour shift on documentation, reducing patient-facing time due to repetitive, flu-driven tasks.
The speaker reports that AI technology is designed to operate in the background during clinical encounters, reducing friction and allowing clinicians to focus on human connection and clinical judgment rather than administrative tasks.
The speaker reports that Microsoft launched a nursing copilot in December where ambient documentation is performed by AI but nurses review and approve notes before filing into the electronic health record, maintaining human-in-the-loop oversight.
Mary Varghese Presti, Corporate Vice President and COO, Microsoft Health & Life Sciences, started her career as a pediatric nurse. She joins Christina Farr to talk about why she wants nurses to demand technology the way physicians do, and what AI has to prove before it's trusted on the clinical side. They get into why nurses have nobody to delegate to, Microsoft's work with Stanford on an agentic tumor board aimed at treatment decisions in days rather than weeks, and her pick between GLP-1s and AI at one, five and ten years. —Join Christina for upcoming webinars:10/8 - Why Are Hospitals Hiring Chief AI Officers? https://streamyard.com/watch/VjvVZiDN8ZMH 10/13 - Verifying AI in Medicine: Is Healthcare AI Actually Ready for Deployment? https://streamyard.com/watch/GwsSXwdikhMw 10/28 - Type 2 Diabetes & Cardiometabolic Care: Wearables, AI & GLP-1s https://streamyard.com/watch/uAuwCzUEJTCF 11/3 - Is It Finally the Moment for Alternative Plan Design? https://streamyard.com/watch/ereM3aB58XK4 —LINKS: Microsoft Dragon Copilot: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/health-solutions/clinical-workflow/dragon-copilot Healthcare Agent Orchestrator: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-cloud/blog/healthcare/2025/05/19/developing-next-generation-cancer-care-management-with-multi-agent-orchestration/ "Nursing Is the Surefire New Path to American Prosperity.": https://www.asrn.org/journal-nursing/3467-nursing-is-the-surefire-new-path-to-american-prosperity.html Lifers episode with Peter Lee: https://youtu.be/lxWYV1rNqR4 Chrissy Farr on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LiferswithChristinaFarr Chrissy Farr on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cfarr/ Subscribe to the Second Opinion Newsletter: https://secondopinion.media/ Chrissy’s Book: The Storyteller's Advantage: https://www.chrissyfarr.com/books —FOLLOW:Mary:https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryvarghese/ https://x.com/MaryVPresti Chrissy:https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinafarr/ https://x.com/chrissyfarr Second Opinion Media:ht
Show transcript excerpt
Mary Varghese Presti, Corporate Vice President and COO, Microsoft Health & Life Sciences, started her career as a pediatric nurse. She joins Christina Farr to talk about why she wants nurses to demand technology the way physicians do, and what AI has to prove before it's trusted on the clinical side. They get into why nurses have nobody to delegate to, Microsoft's work with Stanford on an agentic tumor board aimed at treatment decisions in days rather than weeks, and her pick between GLP-1s and AI at one, five and ten years. —Join Christina for upcoming webinars:10/8 - Why Are Hospitals Hiring Chief AI Officers? https://streamyard.com/watch/VjvVZiDN8ZMH 10/13 - Verifying AI in Medicine: Is Healthcare AI Actually Ready for Deployment? https://streamyard.com/watch/GwsSXwdikhMw 10/28 - Type 2 Diabetes & Cardiometabolic Care: Wearables, AI & GLP-1s https://streamyard.com/watch/uAuwCzUEJTCF 11/3 - Is It Finally the Moment for Alternative Plan Design? https://streamyard.com/watch/ereM3aB58XK4 —LINKS: Microsoft Dragon Copilot: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/health-solutions/clinical-workflow/dragon-copilot Healthcare Agent Orchestrator: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-cloud/blog/healthcare/2025/05/19/developing-next-generation-cancer-care-management-with-multi-agent-orchestration/ "Nursing Is the Surefire New Path to American Prosperity.": https://www.asrn.org/journal-nursing/3467-nursing-is-the-surefire-new-path-to-american-prosperity.html Lifers episode with Peter Lee: https://youtu.be/lxWYV1rNqR4 Chrissy Farr on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LiferswithChristinaFarr Chrissy Farr on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cfarr/ Subscribe to the Second Opinion Newsletter: https://secondopinion.media/ Chrissy’s Book: The Storyteller's Advantage: https://www.chrissyfarr.com/books —FOLLOW:Mary:https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryvarghese/ https://x.com/MaryVPresti Chrissy:https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinafarr/ https://x.com/chrissyfarr Second Opinion Media:https://www.instagram.com/second.opinion.media/ https://x.com/second_op_media —TIMESTAMPS:(00:00) Lead in(00:32) Intro(02:08) AI in healthcare hits scale(03:40) Why nursing is the next frontier(05:24) The LLM lightbulb moment(07:35) From hype to pragmatism(11:28) Nurses fear and job security(15:02) Admin bloat and incentives(18:24) Burnout and nursing documentation(20:55) Agentic workflows at the bedside(25:42) Caregiving and consumer copilots(30:20) Learning to trust AI answers(34:28) Clinical AI trust and regulation(39:35) AI and expanding disease definitions(44:22) How AI could reshape care teams(51:41) One five ten year predictions(52:45) Wrap
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