I Took the Human Out of the Workflow in 2008

The post: Dr. Pho reviewed Innovaccer CEO Abhinav Shashank's upcoming book, which argues that healthcare's administrative waste comes from a decision architecture that puts a human at every handoff, and that autonomous AI workflows should replace them. He asked readers which handoff in their organization exists only because 'that's the workflow.'

Read Dr. Kevin Pho's original post on LinkedIn →

My comment:

I took the human out of the workflow in late 2008. It made $150 million. It cost me eight and a half years in federal prison.

I built a button that ordered 54 lab tests on a single urine sample. One click, no human step. I didn't call it autonomy. I called it removing friction, because every second a doctor spent deciding whether a test was necessary was a second my company wasn't earning.

It worked exactly as designed. That was the problem.

So when I read "a person still makes this handoff only because that's the workflow," I agree most of those handoffs are waste. But some of them are the only place in the chain where somebody can still say no. I removed that one on purpose.

The architecture argument is right. What matters is who's designing it and what they're optimizing for.

Honest question for the people building this, because aspiring founders ask me constantly: how do you tell a handoff that's waste from one that's a brake?

Originally posted as a comment on LinkedIn.