C-Suite Perspectives On AI: Nicholas Luthy Of Collette Health On Where to Use AI and Where to Rely Only on Humans
An Interview With Kieran Powell
Data Volume and Consistency: Use AI for continuous monitoring and data collection in virtual patient observation. For example, AI can track patient movement patterns or changes in behavior over extended periods without fatigue. Rely on humans for interpreting this data in the context of individual patient needs and making decisions about intervention.
As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to advance and integrate into various aspects of business, decision-makers at the highest levels face the complex task of determining where AI can be most effectively utilized and where the human touch remains irreplaceable. This series seeks to explore the nuanced decisions made by C-Suite executives regarding the implementation of AI in their operations. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Nicholas Luthy.
Nicholas Luthy is the Chief Product Officer at Collette Health, a role he has held since September 2021, following a brief tenure as the VP of Products. Nicholas’ technological expertise was fostered at Interactive Digital Solutions, Inc., where he served as Chief Product Officer and earlier as VP of Products and Marketing for over six years. Under his guidance at Collette Health, the team has focused on scalability and performance, making significant strides in cloud-based video and the emerging field of AI. Outside his work, he volunteers with underprivileged children, earning the Ruth Freund Award from “Motivate Our Minds,” an educational program that helps children and families grow and flourish.
Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
I’d love to share a bit about my journey. My path into the world of technology and innovation began at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, where I pursued degrees in Computer Science and Applied Physics. Initially, I dreamt of designing video games, aspiring to work on something like World of Warcraft. However, life had different plans, and my first role out of college was with Interactive Intelligence, a company specializing in call center software.
At Interactive Intelligence, I started as an Application Developer, focusing on Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems — the tech behind those phone menus we all navigate. It wasn’t the most glamorous topic at social gatherings, but it was incredibly formative. I quickly moved implementation projects for some of the world’s largest brands, which was like a crash course in business operations and customer interaction on a global scale.
My role evolved into advocacy for how customers could implement our software, which naturally led me to Product Management. Here, I managed three product lines across various families, dealing with IVR, speech recognition, and localization. This period at Interactive Intelligence was steeped in a culture of deliberate innovation, where we were often at the forefront of cloud technology adoption. Witnessing the industry’s initial hesitance and eventual embrace of cloud solutions with products like Microsoft’s Exchange Online, and later our own creation, PureCloud — a cloud-native contact center — I learned valuable lessons about innovation, market readiness, and technology adoption cycles.
The concept of cloud technology and its resistance in different sectors intrigued me, especially when Tracy Mills approached me to join Interactive Digital Solutions. We discussed at length the future of healthcare, particularly how cloud technology could revolutionize patient care despite the sector’s initial reluctance. This conversation was pre-pandemic, when skepticism about cloud solutions in healthcare was high, mirroring earlier apprehensions I had seen with cloud email and voice services.
Inspired by these insights and driven by a vision of what healthcare could become, we started developing what is now known as the Collette Health platform, initially launched as MedSitter. Our goal was to create a cloud-native video observation platform that would enhance patient safety and care. Over the years, this product has not only evolved but has also spun off into its own company, built on a foundation of customer-centric design, relentless innovation, and a quality-first approach.
Today, Collette Health stands as a testament to where listening to customers, fostering innovation, and focusing on quality can lead. It embodies the lessons from my early career and the collaborative spirit of everyone who has contributed along the way. Our journey underscores a commitment to advancing healthcare through technology, always with a human touch at its core.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Many of the best stories are locked away behind NDAs. What I can say are the results and lessons learned:
- Leadership isn’t about being the boss. Leadership is about cultivating an amazing team, empowering them, and doing your very best to clear their path.
- Innovation is part technology, part vision, and part great team culture. Innovations rarely rise out of committees, innovation comes from having the right advantage in technology at the right time, and keeping a good ear to the ground for customer needs and then ensuring you have an amazing team to bring the vision to reality.
- In my early career, I got a deep dose of balancing customer voice and technical requirements. There is an art to creating technology where sometimes you need to deliver exactly what is requested, and sometimes you need to understand that even the most vociferously demanded features aren’t in the customer’s best interest and to solve their real needs vs their requested features.
- And finally, be your authentic self; the adage that life is too short is all too true. When I engage customers, I try to be myself; have some fun; and be human. People can sense when you aren’t yourself. I prefer to be relatable versus falsely prim and proper. I enjoy emailing directly with everyday users of our system about their product feedback (a late-night hobby of mine).
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
For years, technology has been expanding in healthcare with the goal of enhancing patient safety and streamlining workflows for nurses. However, while well-intentioned, many of these advancements inadvertently complicated workflows. Electronic medical records (EMRs), for example, are a prime example of a promising solution that has evolved into a time sink.
However, with the advent of the AI revolution, we’re entering an exciting era where technology can truly help rather than hinder human capabilities. We’re seeing this philosophy come to life in several new features Collette Health has rolled out this year. For example, our “Follow Patient” feature uses AI to automatically keep patients in view during virtual observation. This might seem like a small improvement, but it eliminates the need for observers to waste valuable time manually adjusting cameras, allowing them to focus more on patient care and safety.
Another example is our “Patient Acuity Scoring” system, which analyzes dozens of aspects of patient data to create a score that accurately reflects each patient’s observation requirements. This score can then be used to distribute patient observation assignments more evenly among staff, reducing observer fatigue and ultimately enhancing the quality of care.
These advancements represent just the beginning of what’s possible when we thoughtfully apply AI in healthcare settings. That’s why we call our approach “human-centered AI” — because it’s designed to empower and complement human expertise rather than replace it.
In your experience, what have been the most challenging aspects of integrating AI into your business operations, and how have you balanced these with the need to preserve human-centric roles?
The integration of AI into our business operations has presented several complex challenges, particularly around the nuances of ethics, morality, and trust, rather than just the technological aspect itself.
- Ethical Considerations: One of the primary challenges has been navigating the ethical landscape of AI. AI systems make decisions based on data and algorithms, but ensuring those decisions align with ethical standards, especially in sensitive sectors like healthcare, requires continuous oversight and discussion. We’ve found ourselves engaging in more ethical debates than technical ones at times, pondering questions like, “Just because we can implement an AI solution, should we?” or “How do we ensure AI respects patient autonomy?”
- Data Privacy and Trust: Operating in a highly regulated market means we’re always balancing innovation with stringent data privacy requirements. The challenge here isn’t just about complying with regulations like HIPAA but about earning and maintaining the trust of our users. Patients and healthcare providers need to trust that AI will handle sensitive information appropriately and that the recommendations or actions taken by AI are in the patient’s best interest. This trust isn’t static; it’s dynamic and can be undermined by even a single instance of AI failing to meet expectations.
- Transparency and Explainability: AI decisions need to be transparent and explainable, especially when those decisions affect patient care. However, many AI models, particularly deep learning ones, operate as “black boxes.” Ensuring we can explain how AI arrives at a decision while still leveraging complex algorithms has been significantly complex.
Can you share a specific instance where AI initially seemed like the optimal solution but ultimately proved less effective than human intervention? What did this experience teach you about the limitations of AI in your field?
The most direct solution that comes to mind is a “fully autonomous” solution. We certainly have competitors that offer an AI-only approach; and while customers in the field give those mixed reviews on accuracy and living up to expectations, the interesting thing that they lack is “humanity”; AI can do many things that are truly wonderful, but AI isn’t better than humans at being humans just yet. A human-centric solution allows a human being to make the empowered final decision when needed; but also can provide secondary benefits during observation in the form of companionship, trust building, and improving patient satisfaction.
How do you navigate the ethical implications of implementing AI in your company, especially concerning potential job displacement and ensuring ethical AI usage?
At Collette Health, our approach to AI implementation is firmly rooted in the principle of augmentation, not replacement. We view AI as a powerful tool to enhance the capabilities of healthcare professionals, not as a substitute for human expertise and compassion. There are many aspects of healthcare where the human touch is irreplaceable — like the ability to empathetically communicate with patients, read subtle emotional cues, or gently redirect a patient who might be about to engage in unsafe behavior. When we utilize AI, we give healthcare professionals more time for the meaningful interactions and critical thinking that drew them to healthcare in the first place.
Could you describe a successful instance in your company where AI and human skills were synergistically combined to achieve a result that neither could have accomplished alone?
Certainly. One of the most successful instances in our company where AI and human skills synergistically combined to achieve an exceptional result was with our Natural Language Processing (NLP) feature in our patient observation system. This example actually draws on a feature set that predates COVID and predates the rise in buzz around AI; we’ve been building AI / ML solutions to problems since the beginning of our product.
Language Barrier Bridging with NLP
In our mission to provide equitable healthcare observation, we encountered a significant challenge: language barriers between patients and observers. To address this, we developed an AI-powered cross-language communication tool within our product. Here’s how this synergy worked:
- AI Component: Our system leverages NLP to allow real-time translation. An observer can type a message in English, which is then translated and voiced to the patient in their preferred language. This feature not only translates but is also constantly improving its ability to handle medical terminology and adapt to various dialects over time.
- Human Component: While AI handles the linguistic translation, our human observers bring invaluable skills to the table. They interpret non-verbal cues, assess the emotional context of the conversation, and use their judgment to manage the interaction sensitively. There are moments when a direct human touch is needed, either because of the complexity of the health discussion or the emotional support required, which AI cannot provide.
The result of this AI-human collaboration is profound. Patients who previously might have received suboptimal care due to language barriers now have equal access to our observation services. This system ensures that communication is not just translated but is also empathetic and contextually appropriate.
This application of AI alongside human judgment has allowed us to offer a service where technology amplifies human care rather than replacing it. The AI component vastly reduces communication barriers, making our service accessible to a broader demographic, while the human observers ensure that care remains personal, sensitive, and highly effective.
This synergy has not only enhanced the quality of care for non-English speaking patients but also exemplified how AI, when thoughtfully integrated with human skills, can lead to outcomes that are compassionate, inclusive, and technologically advanced — truly a result that neither AI nor human effort could have accomplished alone.
Based on your experience and success, what are the “5 Things To Keep in Mind When Deciding Where to Use AI and Where to Rely Only on Humans, and Why?” How have these 5 things impacted your work or your career?
1 . Data Volume and Consistency: Use AI for continuous monitoring and data collection in virtual patient observation. For example, AI can track patient movement patterns or changes in behavior over extended periods without fatigue. Rely on humans for interpreting this data in the context of individual patient needs and making decisions about intervention.
2. Time-Sensitivity and Alerting: Implement AI for real-time detection of potentially dangerous situations, such as fall risks or sudden changes in patient behavior. Reserve human involvement for responding to these alerts, assessing the situation firsthand, and deciding on appropriate actions.
3. Repetitive vs. Complex Tasks: Utilize AI for routine aspects of patient observation, like maintaining camera focus on patients or logging basic activity data. Rely on humans for complex assessments that require contextual understanding, such as distinguishing between normal restlessness and signs of distress.
4. Objective vs. Subjective Assessments: Apply AI to tasks involving quantifiable metrics in virtual observation, like tracking patient positioning or time spent in bed. Keep humans in charge of subjective assessments that require empathy and interpersonal skills, such as evaluating a patient’s emotional state or comfort level through observation.
5. Pattern Recognition vs. Nuanced Understanding: Employ AI to identify recurring patterns in patient behavior or environmental factors that might contribute to patient safety risks. Rely on human expertise to understand the nuanced reasons behind patient behaviors and develop personalized care strategies based on these insights.
Looking towards the future, in which areas of your business do you foresee AI making the most significant impact, and conversely, in which areas do you believe a human touch will remain indispensable?
Looking towards the future, in our business of providing patient observation solutions for hospitals, I foresee AI making the most significant impact in several key areas:
- Data Processing and Analysis: AI can analyze vast amounts of video and sensor data in real-time, far surpassing human capabilities in speed and consistency. This means quicker detection of potential issues or anomalies in patient behavior or condition.
- Predictive Analytics: AI can predict potential health events or patient deteriorations by learning from historical data. This predictive capability could significantly enhance the proactive care model, allowing for earlier interventions.
- Workflow Optimization: AI will streamline the operational aspects of patient monitoring by automating routine checks, prioritizing alerts based on urgency, and reducing false alarms. This will save time and reduce the cognitive load on human observers, allowing them to focus on critical decision-making.
- Personalization of Care: By understanding patterns in patient data, AI can help tailor monitoring protocols to individual patient needs, potentially improving outcomes by customizing the level of observation and intervention required.
However, despite these advancements, there are areas where I believe a human touch will remain indispensable:
- Empathy and Emotional Support: The human element in healthcare is irreplaceable when it comes to providing comfort, understanding, and emotional support to patients. The presence of a human observer can be reassuring in ways technology cannot replicate.
- Complex Decision Making: While AI can provide data-driven suggestions, nuanced judgment calls, especially in ambiguous or ethically complex situations, require human reasoning. Decisions that involve understanding the broader context of a patient’s life, their wishes, or ethical considerations will still need human oversight.
- Communication with Patients and Families: Interacting with patients and their families, explaining situations, and making them feel heard and cared for, necessitates a human connection. The subtleties of human communication, including non-verbal cues, can’t be fully managed by AI.
- Crisis Intervention: In acute situations where immediate action is needed, the ability of a human to react with both intuition and empathy, to physically intervene, or to coordinate with other healthcare professionals in real-time, is crucial.
- Ethical and Moral Judgments: Decisions that involve ethical dilemmas or moral judgments will continue to require human input. AI can inform these decisions, but the final call should be made by humans.
Our approach is to use AI as an enhancer, not a replacer, of human capabilities. By keeping our technology “human-centric,” we ensure that AI serves as a powerful tool in the hands of our healthcare professionals, augmenting their ability to provide care while preserving the essential human touch that lies at the heart of healthcare. This blend of AI’s efficiency with human judgment and empathy represents, in my view, the future of patient safety and care.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 😊
If I could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, it would be centered around democratizing and revolutionizing power generation and storage. Here’s why:
In our increasingly connected world, where Starlink — for example — aims to bring internet to every corner of the earth, we’re not just talking about connectivity but about empowering lives. However, this connectivity, alongside the rise of AI and the exponential increase in computational needs, brings with it an insatiable demand for power. “Compute” power isn’t just a technical requirement; it’s becoming the backbone of our digital economy, education, healthcare, and virtually every aspect of modern life. It is becoming the currency of the future.
The movement I envision would focus on:
- Ubiquitous Power: Making energy accessible everywhere, from urban centers to the most remote villages. Imagine every home, school, and hospital powered consistently, enabling education, health services, and economic activities without interruption.
- Nearly Free Energy: Through innovation in solar, wind, possibly fusion, and other renewable sources, we can drive down the cost of energy. By doing so, we reduce one of the fundamental barriers to development and quality of life improvements.
- Clean and Sustainable: Addressing the environmental impact of energy production is non-negotiable. The movement would push for technologies that are not only efficient but also environmentally benign, tackling climate change while powering our world.
- Energy Storage Innovation: The sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow. Advanced, affordable storage solutions are key to ensuring that clean energy can be used whenever it’s needed, smoothing out the supply and making renewable energy truly reliable.
This movement would aim to shift power from being a luxury or a significant expense to a basic, almost unnoticed foundation of daily life, similar to how we view water or air. By making power ubiquitous, affordable, and clean, we tackle multiple issues at once:
- Economic Growth: Lower energy costs mean more resources for businesses to innovate and for individuals to spend on education and health.
- Education and Innovation: With reliable power, we can ensure that digital learning tools are always available, and research can continue unhindered.
- Health: Consistent power means better healthcare facilities can operate round the clock, cold chains for vaccines are maintained, and life-saving equipment can run without fail.
- Environmental Impact: Shifting away from fossil fuels reduces pollution, fights climate change, and preserves ecosystems.
This movement could trigger a cascade of advancements in technology, policy, and societal norms, essentially powering a new era of human development. By addressing the power challenge, we’re not just lighting up homes but igniting potential across the globe.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
I regularly share insights and updates on our website, www.collettehealth.com, which serves as the central repository for my activities in the healthcare IT space, including blog posts, external articles, upcoming webinars, and other resources focused on virtual patient observation and AI in healthcare.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
About The Interviewer: Kieran Powell is the EVP of Channel V Media a New York City Public Relations agency with a global network of agency partners in over 30 countries. Kieran has advised more than 150 companies in the Technology, B2B, Retail and Financial sectors. Prior to taking over business operations at Channel V Media, Kieran held roles at Merrill Lynch, PwC and Ernst & Young. Get in touch with Kieran to discuss how marketing and public relations can be leveraged to achieve concrete business goals.
C-Suite Perspectives On AI: Nicholas Luthy Of Collette Health On Where to Use AI and Where to Rely… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.