Canada has the potential to lead in medical AI—but leadership won’t be decided by technology alone.

In this episode of Wired for Change, Amy Yee sits down with Dr. Khaled El Emam to explore what it will really take to move medical AI from promise to practice. Drawing on real-world deployments in Canadian healthcare, they unpack why talent, data, and urgency—not hype—are now the deciding factors.

This conversation covers:

• Where medical AI is already delivering real impact

• Why deployment lags behind technical capability

• How trust, transparency, and responsible data use enable scale

• What Canada risks by moving too slowly—and what it gains by acting now

Grounded, pragmatic, and optimistic, this episode is about leadership, legitimacy, and why the window to act is open—but narrowing.

Find out more about OMARI: https://www.uottawa.ca/faculty-medicine/research-and-innovation/ottawa-medical-ai-research-institute-overview

Find out more about Amy Yee:

www.amyeyee.com

Chapters:

00:00 – Why medical AI feels urgent right now

02:05 – AI isn’t new, but the moment has changed

04:50 – Where medical AI is already in use

07:45 – System efficiency and clinician burden

10:15 – Why healthcare innovation is hard to deploy

12:30 – Competitiveness, dependency, and local models

15:05 – Moving from analysis to action

17:40 – Data access as opportunity and constraint

20:10 – Canadian examples of AI in practice

24:05 – AI scribes and clinician sustainability

26:45 – Patient-facing tools and informed decisions

29:40 – Risks of generic AI tools

31:50 – What enables successful deployment

34:30 – Who pays for medical AI?

36:45 – Why stories and trust matter

39:10 – Public legitimacy and social license

42:00 – Talent as a competitive advantage

45:15 – Multidisciplinary leadership and optimism

48:50 – Entrepreneurship and real-world impact

53:10 – IP, innovation, and staying ahead

57:40 – Competing without the biggest budget

01:01:50 – Compute, regulation, and urgency

01:06:10 – Practical privacy and de-identification

01:11:40 – Toward national standards

01:15:30 – What’s driving optimism

01:19:00 – Closing reflections