SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to Confidence to Thrive, the podcast for ambitious healthcare practitioners and entrepreneurs, brought to you by Our City Advisors. Welcome to Confidence to Thrive, the podcast helping growing practitioners and healthcare entrepreneurs navigate the challenges and risks of regulation while building brands that matter. Every episode, we tackle a different issue facing healthcare practitioners or entrepreneurs, or we interview a guest who is working on the leading edge of private healthcare, building something that matters in their sector or profession. On today's episode, Adrian Richards, Medical Director Iconic Aesthetics, is back for the fourth part in this series in discussion with Christopher Cloak Brown and Roger Houston, directors at Our Licity. If you haven't listened to the three previous episodes, we recommend going back to episodes 21, 22, and 23 before listening to this one. In this episode, Christopher Roger and Adrian discuss the impact of AI on private medical businesses, and Adrian reveals how he is using AI across his businesses to amplify the impact of his team. The discussion also touches on the ethical and legal implications of using AI and its value in note-taking and record keeping for the purposes of defending claims. Let's join the discussion now.

SPEAKER_03 1:03

So, Adrian, thank you ever so much for coming back yet again to the Confidence to Thrive podcast. Fascinating insights. Yeah. A lot of different ways. And AI is the hot topic everywhere, especially in healthcare. And your new business iconic is a big user of AI, I believe. So be interesting, first of all, to understand where you use AI. And then something I think is what's quite interesting and important and a big debate in AI at the moment is what's your sort of AI ethos? Is it, oh, I'm just going to replace all the people and AI is going to take over? Or is it more AI can do amazing things, but I still need my people and I need to work out how it all works together, or what's your sort of AI vision?

SPEAKER_04 1:52

So in answer to your question, Chris, I don't know. Everyone's got an opinion on AI, quite strong opinions. But whether they're all right or not, I don't know. Does that make sense? Because it's changing so fast. So I know quite a lot of people who are involved in AI. I met a guy recently meeting who his company basically collects data from all the medical practices in the UK. Yeah. So basically, if you've got a drug and you want to get a new filler or something, you go, you know, who the top 20 practices we should go and deliver it to, what they turn over, who should we talk to, dah dah dah, give me a strategy for our sales reps. He can do that. He does it for all the main companies. He has he said 20 employees, of which 16 are bots. Right. So they've all got names. He calls them after characters in of Holy Fortune Horses. So it's got a Dale trigger. Dell's a salesman. And Rodders in accounts. And he says, actually, it's interesting, what they actually email each other. Oh wow. The bots email each other with questions and they're developing characters. Oh wow. And one of them said he wants to go home at five o'clock on a Friday. Yeah. He was saying that he wants to make his business completely lights off. I would never heard that phrase. So what does that mean? And he goes, but it's basically a business run completely by bots. And they develop their own personalities and argue with each other and squabble. Oh wow. Okay. Yeah. God, you'll need you need an HR department, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Yeah, an HR bot. An HR bot.

SPEAKER_04 3:32

That's the one with the off switch. Well, my son uses AI for answering questions about like what Yeah, basic FAQs, yeah. A bit more than that. What decisions should I make? Anyway, so it's really interesting. So whether we like it or not, it's here. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 3:46

I think that is a top takeaway.

SPEAKER_04 3:47

It's not going away. No. So whether it's good or bad for humanity, I don't know. There's very interesting debate about that. But the fact is that if you're a business person, you really have to because you're dealing with businesses. There's a friend of mine who works for Amazon I go to the gym with, he's got a team, so he was him, and he had a team, but he's kept his team, but he's got doubled it with bots, and now he's doing four times as much work through his team. He didn't he was so you've got to incorporate in your business. Now the way we do it is humans are really you can't replace a human for empathy, understanding. Surgeons still need to be, but any practitioners need to be human. It's a human-to-human thing. We need humans. And I hope we're always near humans.

SPEAKER_03 4:43

It seems like a mad thing to do to replace ourselves. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:47

My job is basically talking to interacting with humans all day.

SPEAKER_03 4:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:51

Like 30, 40 humans. So in all our team we've chosen because of their skills in that area. So what do we use it for? So we use it for visual simulations people. All my meetings fed into AI. So I record all the meetings. Yeah. I'm actually trying to say less, like on the recorder, it tells you how much you talk in a meeting. I'm trying to keep it low and let other people do the talking, but it records everything and then it can analyse it so I can say to it, tell me what my ten most important tasks are.

unknown 5:32

Okay?

SPEAKER_04 5:32

It would tell me. Tell me what Adam was really focusing on, what he repeatedly mentioned in meetings. What would he like to do? What are his strengths? Yeah. Okay. So all those sorts of things like marketing, website design, HR, anything that can be automated and isn't a person, I think you probably have to incorporate it. Marketing, email, all of that stuff. What can be incorporated into AI, I think you should. I think you should because it's like having a super brain. Every meeting I go to, every word said, I can analyze it. Yeah. I would talk to another guy, he said he got a a bot to to this is a bit scary, to because they record all the he runs a big company with another record answering centre, but they got all the conversations. Yeah. So he fed five years of conversations into the bot, which learnt it all. Yeah. And within a few days, the owner of the company had to phone up and try and tell whether it was a person or a bot answering the phone. And he couldn't tell. Okay. And in fact, he said the better person was the bot. Okay. So he managed to whether this is good or bad, he managed to replace his whole call answering team with an automated bot which works 24-7. Yeah. And kids continually learning and getting giving better answers than a human.

SPEAKER_03 7:08

So how does that continue? Because that's one of the things that bothers me is uh yeah, five years of human history that you fed in. Yeah, I didn't do this. Yes, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And there is this whole question is can AI learn from AI and all that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_04 7:26

But this AI learned from Yeah. And it became the call answering 24 hours a day, answering all the calls, continually learning what everyone said, yeah, before giving better answers. Yeah. So that is going to happen. Yeah. So I think as a business person, what do you think, Raj?

SPEAKER_01 7:44

I think, yeah, you're probably right. I think it's quite scary. It's scary. I think for people that have struggled with formal education and there are it's going to completely change the nature of the labour market. I think it is.

SPEAKER_03 7:57

And but again, you see, that's an interesting question, isn't it? Is that for the better and all these things are big debates?

SPEAKER_04 8:03

Well, Chris, the thing is, you can debate in the pub all night about is it right? Where's it going? Is it this, is it that? What's gonna but the fact is it is here, and what I try and do in my life. Do you know about stoic philosophy? Yes. Thought you might. You know what what is it? What are the keys?

SPEAKER_03 8:26

Isn't that probably the key you're trying to get to is influence what you can influence and accept what you can't?

SPEAKER_04 8:32

Yes. So how much of your time do you spend thinking about things that are now?

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:40

Probably too much. Too much, yeah. So you you really if you don't think about now what is happening now, not worrying too much about things you can't control. So how much time do you spend worrying about things you can't control? Yeah, with me definitely too much. Too much, yeah, yeah. So I can't control AI, but I do run a business. Business is, and a if we don't get involved with AI, we will fall back. You just can't, you have to. So is that right or wrong? Should you just give up and go and sit in the sun? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

And definitely not everybody has that option.

SPEAKER_04 9:15

So no, no, you could, everyone has that option, really. Maybe I think actually, because my son got four children. My son, they went to university and did well, he's opted not for a life of going into the city and doing all that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_03 9:29

And that's a whole different debate, isn't it? It's a change and just a change in the whole work.

SPEAKER_04 9:34

Yeah, and he's saying these jobs aren't good. Why why?

SPEAKER_03 9:37

Yeah. So maybe he's right. My choices would be different if I were that age today.

SPEAKER_04 9:43

What would your choices be then, Chris?

SPEAKER_03 9:44

Oh, today. I don't know. I would not necessarily go to university, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_04 9:48

Yeah, we have a good time at university, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:51

I I had a fantastic time. I even went back, so I think we went back so much, yeah. Yeah, I had a double dose, yes. You did it twice. So yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:02

Anyway, so yeah, moving on.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

So yeah. What do you think, Raj? Yeah, I think it's inevitable, as you say, but I do think that there's an element in your business which requires human interaction and empathy. Yeah, I think for us we're similar, and I'd like to see a lot of the back office stuff.

SPEAKER_03 10:20

We we have the same mindset as you in terms of our business, so yeah, it's inevitable, it's happening. Yeah, everything's got AI embedded into it. So you're gonna use it whether you like it or not, basically.

SPEAKER_04 10:31

Well, you've got AI on your phone, you've got it everywhere. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:34

Yeah. And I think it is that, but the thing that I think that AI doesn't replace is is that human side. Yeah. There is so it's very good at some tasks, but those are the frankly the more repetitive, boring tasks that humans generally would find quite dull. I'm quite positive on it. Use well, it should liberate your human staff to actually do the things that are more human and more interesting to them. Yes, it should liberate our human.

SPEAKER_04 11:00

There's a lot more gyms, people get doing a lot more other activities which don't involve sitting down working, interacting with people. We're right, I live in a small village with the the pubs, you know, we work together a pub, making food, doing all things, breweries, make you know, doing things together, yeah, human things. I agree with you. AI can do the non-human things, but we always need human things.

SPEAKER_03 11:23

So yeah, okay. This is completely away from your area of medicine, but that's for here. Yeah, and the hot topic is the whole ADHD thing. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's another thing. And so here's my theory on ADHD. It's it's actually not the people that are wrong, it's actually the world that's been created that's wrong. Probably the ADHD people do not fit a boring repetitive task sitting in an office environment. That's only a very modern, recent invention.

SPEAKER_04 11:50

We're we're we're a tribe. Yeah, we basically we're groups of 40 people. If you've got a business, if you get over 45 people, you need to start locking the stationary cabinet. People use that if so we probably if monkey tribes are together, if they get over 45, they split into two. Yeah. So we are designed, armies are designed to be in that sort of group units and things. So in that group, you need a musician, a couple of artists, people who go to bed late and stay up all night, be guards, people who get up in the morning, people are good at running, people are good at short-sighted, are good at you. We need everybody. Yeah. Yeah? All the skills, don't we?

SPEAKER_03 12:24

Yes. Yes. Yes, that's the thing. And then the there's some things which are just modern creations, like all this office work and stuff like that, which is not so. If you can design a machine that does that, why wouldn't that be a good thing?

SPEAKER_04 12:38

Yeah, we're really designed to be outside, exercising, moving, eating healthy food, not no, uh, you know, being together, doing things together, cooking, eating, hunting, yeah, doing things together.

SPEAKER_03 12:51

Yes.

unknown 12:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:53

That social. So within that, so as you manage that business, that healthcare business, do you worry about AI getting the notes wrong and things like that?

SPEAKER_04 13:01

Because it doesn't please you. Yeah. And it doesn't feel bad about getting it wrong. Yeah. It it can actually tell you complete Yeah. Complete rubbish. A human wouldn't do that. We feel bad about it, but AI. You go, that's complete rubbish. I can't say that. He goes, Oh, sorry. Yeah, this is but it is harder.

SPEAKER_03 13:23

And I was debating I was debating that the other day. It's quite funny when you're using an AI to write a letter or something like that. I still try and write the letter and then say to AI, what do you think about that? Yeah, and then I'll pick up something and it says, Oh, that's a really horrible sentence. You really shouldn't say that. But it's something that I actually really want to say.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

But you actually say to the AI, no, I really want to say that it comes back and says, Oh, this is how it really fits in, and it's actually a really good idea. You don't expose you, don't you?

SPEAKER_04 13:51

Yeah, if it was your friend, there'd be quite an unreliable friend. There'd be in between is just makes stuff up. Yeah, it makes random stuff up. So I think you've got to be very careful, you've got to be really careful. Basically, you've got to be careful, yes, with everything, with like photographs, with AI. You you seeing in the Yankee we're talking about, Roger. We all see the upside, we all see the income, and you see the possibilities, but you you've got to it's the football team, you it's it it's great to have an attacking, but you've got your good defence, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

So the the price of it and the accessibility is like never before. But I do think you're right. Part of me thinks just because you can do it doesn't mean you should. Yeah, I think that argument is pretty much lost in the sense that it the reality is it's here, so how do you best deploy it? They've tried, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 14:42

The good thing is we're only worrying about the present. We are, yes. So we can't affect that, can we, Roger? No, we can't. No, you're right.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

But we can affect claims patience, yeah. Yeah, so should we Yeah, to be fair, yeah. So an AI does produce a good, reliable back. It's interesting you say that it hasn't got a conscience in the sense it doesn't worry about getting it wrong because that's a learning point.

SPEAKER_03 15:06

Yeah, so my my second time at university was doing a PhD in machine learning resistance, but I actually approached it from so my examiners were developmental psychologists in terms of learning and how the children learn. Yeah, interesting. And really what use my personal view from that is that AI doesn't it doesn't have this concept of grounding, so it doesn't yeah, so a person's a person, not it's in this case in philosophy and all this sort of stuff, yeah. But a person's a person due to their connectivity with the world, it's because we learn from the environment around us. Yes, so the brain is actually integral to the environment. You can't be intelligent without being in within an environment. Yeah, but without being within an environment, basically. Yeah, and AI, as good as it is, doesn't learn from that environment. No, it just learns from a whole bunch of data, so it doesn't and it doesn't have those really core emotions and that and that's exactly right. So it seems like it does, yes, but it's only learned the emotions from what it's seen.

SPEAKER_04 16:09

Yeah, it doesn't have the core that's the people's autism are the same, aren't they?

SPEAKER_03 16:13

Yeah, they have to learn emotions, yeah, and so that's yeah, that's what makes it it's an amazingly powerful tool, yeah, but that's what makes it different from people.

SPEAKER_04 16:23

Yeah. Uh but you were talking about PTSD. No, not PTSD, so ADHD.

SPEAKER_03 16:28

Yes, yes. But but that's why the machines, you see, I think the machines can do those boring repetitive tasks because again, the whole now there is a school of thought that ADHD is actually just a a positive genetic adaptation for under gatherers. Yeah, yeah. I got it.

SPEAKER_04 16:46

Yes, but most people I mean but but most successful people, yes, what are the characteristics? You energy, focus. Yeah, if you're too much, it's a problem.

SPEAKER_03 17:03

I'm just thinking at the time, but this is a really interesting conversation. So I watched there's a really good Netflix mini-series about the founding of Netflix, uh, the founding of Spotify. Yeah. And it's six episodes, and it does each episode from the perspective of a different person involved. So you get the same story, and there's this guy Martin Laurenson, who was he was basically the financial backing behind it. Yeah. And he had a he was he built a business around the early days of targeted ads. Yeah. And then Daniel Eck, who was the founder CEO, sold his first Targeted Ads business to Laurensen, who was so impressed by him, he said, Come tell me your next idea, and his next idea was Spotify. Yeah, good idea. Yeah. So Laurenson basically left Daniel Eck to do all the tech, get the tech team, do the tech, but said, I'm gonna do everything else. He did the marketing, he did the legal guys, he built up whole business. Perfect. But he is off the chart ADHD. So the episode is about Laurenson starts with literally him in school, and he's just jumping from desk to desk and telling a story, and all everybody's rising and just switches to the present day when he was in his his own business, yeah. And he's still on the desk, jumping from desk to desk, telling a big story, and all the employees are cheering, and there's this man standing in the corner in this grey suit looking really unimpressed. Yeah. And that's the and it switches to the next scene, which is him and his business partner in an office with the man in the grey suit. Yeah, and they were looking to list the company on the stock it's going to the guy in the grey suit with the guy to list it, and he's saying, We only list serious companies that doesn't his business partner has to say, Look, Martin, uh, I need to talk to the the man and we are a serious company, yeah. You just go and do what you need to do, yeah, and so on. So he gets thrown out of the whole meeting and is not allowed to be a director of the company that he's clearly absolutely central and all his ADHDs.

SPEAKER_04 18:51

Business has changed, we've had that. So I'm my strength is growing businesses from zero to ten to twenty million. Okay, gets any bigger than that, it gets too complicated, too corporate. The genius guy we were talking about earlier who's helping us. So I was just a small fry, and now I'm dealing with some I have been interacting with some big fry, some American big fry, really smart people. And it's yeah, it's really these people are amazing, but they are nearly you meet them, and they're not you're regular people, you meet down the pub. Yes. Or maybe they are, everyone's different, aren't they? But they're yeah, it's interesting. People are interesting, aren't they?

SPEAKER_03 19:31

Yeah, yeah. So a fascinating thing. But I think maybe our conclusion from the thing is AI is great, but it's not people, and people are people.

SPEAKER_04 19:39

Yeah, so I would say if you're gonna if you you've got to get involved in AI, because they say you won't lose a job to AI, you will lose your job to someone who knows about AI. Yeah. So you need to be someone who knows about AI and incorporates it appropriately into your business. Not forgetting humans are really important. So probably of our employees, half will be AI moving forward, half will be humans. And like that other guy, we'll get Dale Boy testing rotters, and yeah, you got Uncle Albert. That's what he's gonna do, but put him into what you put Uncle Albert and Uncle Albert do.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Oh, he'd be complaints.

SPEAKER_04 20:22

Customer care champion. Anyway, yeah, anyway, yeah, just Chris, just like I say, thanks for you, great insurance company. I think you've you're fresh air in the in the environment. And what I think the really important thing for us is which uh whatever your business is, uh, if you're a practitioner, really talk to these guys, get good advice, and look after your patients, and you'll help us through the process. And try not to fall foul of any of the things that you can fall foul of. And these guys, you're gonna help us, I think.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we've seen quite a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_04 21:09

I won't say anything because no one's but yeah, we've got we should do a podcast just going through some of the things you've seen, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Literally, just did it the ramblings of a ramblings of a yeah, I think people would watch it there, I'd watch it.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

Yeah, yeah. Interesting stories, yeah. The Diary of a Nobody was a book. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 21:35

It's definitely gonna be one up on that, Roger, because you're not a nobody.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

It wasn't a good recovery, was it?

SPEAKER_04 21:42

No, no, no, but it wasn't retire now to the aren't we? We are, yes, to consider a few things.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

But no, thanks, Asian, for doing that. And yeah, we like working with you because you are definitely different. And the idea that you involve us in some of this stuff, we don't just you don't see us as just coming along trying to sell you a piece of paper, no, which some do, and the idea that we could actually ultimately increase your multiplier. We're up for that. We don't want to cut nothing like that. No, but we don't want you to be unreasonably discounted against for things that we can we can head off now.

SPEAKER_04 22:18

Yeah, get everything right. We work with lovely people, we work with the best people, we do the best things. If synergistic when I went to um stam recently, and it's all floods and they've got this idea of polder in polders of the thing, the humps that people live on. Yes when it flooded. And it's the idea that whoever we are, we all whatever we disagree, maybe, or whatever, we get together and we have a collective responsibility for because we're otherwise we'll all flood. Yeah, yeah. So that's what we do, you know, we're stronger together.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Yeah, yeah, no, exactly. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 22:51

It really is good, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

And there's plenty of flood water out there metaphorically in what we do. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 22:57

Yeah, and so really important to work with a great team. Anyway, we better go. That's a great place to be. Yeah, Adrian.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Thank you, thanks for getting inviting me. Thanks, Chris. Thank you for listening to Confidence to Thrive. Before you go, please rate, review, and subscribe to Confidence to Thrive on your preferred podcast platform and help us spread our message to others while we can live in place in private healthcare. This podcast was brought to you by Analycity, insurance advisors who support your business ambitions. Amelicity advises practitioners, owners, and entrepreneurs to give healthcare practices on mitigating risks so your business can thrive. Learn more about how Alicity can support you by finding the link in the show notes or visiting analysity.co.uk