The tasks AI should take off doctors' plates — and the ones it shouldn't | Hashem Zikry (Counsel Health)

Hashem Zikry is a practicing emergency physician at UCLA, a researcher focused on unnecessary ED utilization, and the medical director for clinical research and policy at Counsel Health — which, this week, began integrating Oura biometric data into clinical decision-making for the first time. That combination of roles gives him an unusual perspective on the question everyone is asking: what should AI actually be allowed to do in clinical care?

He also speaks about regulation — the current state-by-state landscape ranges from Utah's live AI sandbox to New York and Colorado bills that would sharply limit patient-facing AI — and Zikry argues a federal floor would accelerate innovation rather than constrain it. On the Oura partnership, he pushes back on the concern that wearables drive unnecessary utilization, contending that access to a clinician at the point of data — not just the data itself — is what changes the demand curve.

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Links referenced

Hashem’s LA Times story: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2026-04-25/ai-democratize-medicine-regulation

Follow Hashem on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hashem-e-z-87243529a/

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