“Everyone’s got an act.” That was Zendaya as Anne Wheeler in The Greatest Showman, a movie about P.T. Barnum’s idea to feature the outcasts of society as entertainment. It may have been a profit-driven exercise, but the movie portrays the circus inventor as an idealist who was trying to normalize the “weirdos” of society – taking the fear out of the new and different. We believe this is also why the Emmys award show exists – so those of us who don’t have HBO Max can learn why a not-funny show (“Hacks”) can win the Emmy for best comedy. CMS is putting on a not-funny show to take the fear out of the profit-driven exercise of developing artificial intelligence in healthcare. This is the topic of the One Thoughtful Paragraph.
Rather than regular news, we want to flash on some of the not-funny healthcare “shows” that happened this week:
“It is an honor to work with someone who looks like a former women’s tennis champion.” Steve Martin said that about Martin Short at the Emmys, as Selena Gomez could barely keep it together watching her funny co-stars of Only Murders In The Building. The Emmys, co-hosted by the father-son duo Eugene and Dan Levy, was very funny this year. Unfortunately, we are sure that the planned CMS showcase of health AI tools will not have the same caliber jokes to make us laugh. They’re calling it CMS AI Demo Day, which would make anyone’s eyes glaze over. Worse, they plan to do it once a quarter, like corporate estimated taxes. But in its own way, CMS is trying. The agency wants health AI developers to tell their story (they ask that everyone begin with “once upon a time”). CMS is also trying to make everyone feel special, inviting even those super-boring health AI tools that deal with risk assessment or business administration automation to contribute. CMS also hilariously asks interested parties to discuss “opportunities for CMS to oversee” (read if you are a health AI company: overregulate) these exciting new innovations. So, not as funny as John Oliver forgetting his own son’s name and dedicating his Emmy to his dead dog and all good dogs, but we give them credit for trying.
