How Earlier Palliative Care Could Change Everything with Dr. Justin Baker
Wednesday, October 7, 2026
Transcript intelligence
What OpenRounds heard
Source-grounded signals extracted from the episode transcript. Timestamps and supporting excerpts appear when available.
The speaker reports that their company's AI technology aims to reduce administrative burden by giving time back to physicians, allowing them to focus on patient connection, based on a cited paper showing a 2:1 ratio of administrative work to face time.
“when we started the company there was a paper that was published that showed for every one hour of facetime the doctor has with their patient they need to spend two hours doing administrative work where ai really starts to to show an impact on this patient connection is number one giving that time back to that to that physician and allowing them to give their undivided attention to that patient right”
The speaker reports that ambient AI technology is not yet effective for palliative care in hospital settings due to interdisciplinary care involving multiple family members, though it is improving daily.
“we're not really implementing this very much right now most of the care that we're providing is in the hospital and is interdisciplinary so we have multiple perspectives at one time multiple family members and this you know ambient ai technology is not really great at that yet it is improving every day”
What if palliative care wasn't something you turned to when there were no options left, but something you brought into care from the beginning? In this episode, we’re joined by Dr. Justin Baker, who is the Division Chief of Quality of Life and Pediatric Palliative Care at Stanford University School of Medicine. Before joining Stanford, Justin spent more than two decades building and leading the palliative care program at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and has authored more than 300 academic publications in the field. Known as Stanford's "Chief Koala Bear," Justin developed the QoLA philosophy, focused on quality of life for all and a cure for more. We discuss what first drew him to palliative care, why it needs to become part of standard oncology care, and what changes when patients and caregivers have access to that support earlier in their journey. We also explore what it really means to care for the person rather than simply treating the disease and how AI could help make palliative care more accessible. If you’re interested in how we can bring the human back into cancer care, without increasing administrative burden, this is for you. Covered in this episode - What it means to care for the whole person. Why palliative care should become part of standard oncology care. What changes when patients receive palliative support earlier. How AI could help advance palliative care. Making medicine less mechanistic and more human. If you got value from this episode of Beyond the Chart, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you don’t miss the next one. LEARN MORE DeepScribe - https://www.deepscribe.ai/ CONNECT Dr. Justin Baker on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-baker-194951148/ Matthew Ko on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/komatthew/ LISTEN Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6IQlU4UeNKLLM4Y1lPTaOV?si=33679e9eb2294adf Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beyond-the-chart-exploring-the-ai-frontier-for-oncology/id1832485207 YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@deepscribeinc.5623
Show transcript excerpt
What if palliative care wasn't something you turned to when there were no options left, but something you brought into care from the beginning?In this episode, we’re joined by Dr. Justin Baker, who is the Division Chief of Quality of Life and Pediatric Palliative Care at Stanford University School of Medicine. Before joining Stanford, Justin spent more than two decades building and leading the palliative care program at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and has authored more than 300 academic publications in the field.Known as Stanford's "Chief Koala Bear," Justin developed the QoLA philosophy, focused on quality of life for all and a cure for more. We discuss what first drew him to palliative care, why it needs to become part of standard oncology care, and what changes when patients and caregivers have access to that support earlier in their journey.We also explore what it really means to care for the person rather than simply treating the disease and how AI could help make palliative care more accessible.If you’re interested in how we can bring the human back into cancer care, without increasing administrative burden, this is for you.Covered in this episode -What it means to care for the whole person.Why palliative care should become part of standard oncology care.What changes when patients receive palliative support earlier.How AI could help advance palliative care.Making medicine less mechanistic and more human.If you got value from this episode of Beyond the Chart, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you don’t miss the next one.LEARN MOREDeepScribe - https://www.deepscribe.ai/ CONNECTDr. Justin Baker on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-baker-194951148/ Matthew Ko on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/komatthew/ LISTENSpotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6IQlU4UeNKLLM4Y1lPTaOV?si=33679e9eb2294adfApple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beyond-the-chart-exploring-the-ai-frontier-for-oncology/id1832485207YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@deepscribeinc.5623
Daily healthcare AI brief
Get the free healthcare AI briefing
One concise briefing built from reporting, research, policy, blogs, videos, and full podcast transcripts.
Free. Sign in to subscribe. Unsubscribe anytime. Already subscribed? Sign in to save and personalize.