Will AI replace nurses? In this episode of Tech It to the Limit, Elliott welcomes back nursing innovation guru Bonnie Clipper to tackle the question she gets asked on LinkedIn more than almost any other: will AI replace nurses? Bonnie makes the case that most AI tools on the market today were built for physician workflows, not nursing ones, and that nursing's "last mile" role in healthcare, the hands on, emotional, human work, is exactly what keeps it furthest from automation. They dig into trust data from recent studies on clinician AI adoption, why nurses currently report lower AI literacy and trust than physicians, and what it would actually look like for AI to clear the noise out of a nurse's shift instead of adding to it. The segment wraps with a lightning round game, Nurse GPT or Portugese, mixing nursing AI trivia with questions about Bonnie's future expat life.

Then, recorded live at ViVE, Elliott sits down with Kirk Barnes, a digital health commercialization strategy expert whose career spans pharma, biotech, venture capital, economic development, and startup incubation at Georgia Tech's ATDC. Kirk shares the networking philosophy that's carried him through layoffs, startup shutdowns, and career pivots: real networking is about giving before you need anything in return. The conversation turns to one of the most expensive and common mistakes digital health founders make: hiring salespeople without understanding sales as its own discipline. Kirk unpacks his "suspect vs. prospect" framework, why sales is really about monetizing problem solving rather than convincing someone of something, and previews the launch of his new venture, the Digital Health Sales Institute.

Tune in to hear why both nursing's future and digital health sales success come down to the same idea: trust has to be earned, and earned early, before you ever need to cash it in.

In this episode:

• [00:00] Podcast welcome
• [00:53] Meet Bonnie Clipper
• [02:25] Will AI replace nurses?
• [03:27] Why nursing workflows matter
• [06:35] The last mile of nursing
• [11:12] Building trust and AI literacy
• [16:13] The Nurse GPT game
• [23:54] Hokey Pokey ad break
• [25:48] Meet Kirk Barnes
• [26:56] Dad joke icebreaker
• [27:34] Kirk's career origin
• [29:10] Recession and startups
• [30:02] Networking before you need it
• [31:16] Building a healthtech program
• [34:38] Sales hiring pitfalls
• [38:02] Monetizing problem-solving
• [40:15] Launching the Sales Institute
• [43:05] Wise Nugs recap
• [47:40] Final wrap and credits

Resources:

Tech It To The Limit Podcast

• Website
• Apple Podcast
  

Bonnie Clipper

• LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/in/bonnieclipper
  

Kirk Barnes

• LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirkbarnes/
• Digital Health Sales Institute: https://digitalhealthsalesinstitute.com/

Elliott Wilson

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewelliottwilson
  

Is that poop or chocolate? Are you wearing underwear? My kid just dropped the F bomb in public…The list of parenting pain points is endless, and health tech can help solve for them! Tune in to find out Elliott and Sarah’s most painful points and what ChatGPT thinks health tech gurus should do about them. Plus, head back to school to learn how to build the evidence base for your digital health solution, whether you work at an Academic Medical Center or a VC-backed startup. Tech It to the Limit!!!

Original music by: Evan O’Donovan

Other music by: SoulProdMusic and Coma-Media from Pixabay

Resources for parents:

• www.Healthchildren.org Kids & Tech: Tips for Parents in the Digital Age - HealthyChildren.org
• How Parents Can Talk About AI and ChatGPT With Their Kids - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Prompt for ChatGPT: “You are a creative product design expert. Create 3 options for a health-related technology solution for [this common parenting problem] The options should be humorous and feasible technology product ideas for parents with children under 12, using technologies such as but not limited to predictive analytics, machine audio and natural language processing, computer vision, VR/AR, automation, robotics, sensors and wearables, generative AI, and computing devices. Products should seem like they could exist with current technology. Include a catchy, pun-based name and a light-hearted, hyped-up 2-3 sentence description for each idea.”

Boomer vs. Millennial. Gen X vs. Gen Z. Gen Alpha vs. the AI bot it just programmed…It’s every generation for themselves in an all-new episode of your favorite humorous health tech podcast! Join Elliott Wilson and Sarah Harper as they unpack the generational baggage of healthcare technology and discuss everything from digital natives to digital bystanders. This episode kicks the ageism out of health tech and is sure to have you and your relatives singing “Kumbaya” around the VR campfire.

• Age Differences in the Use of Health Information Technology Among Adults in the United States: An Analysis of the Health Information National Trends Survey - PubMed (nih.gov)
• Inter-generational Effects of Technology: Why Millennial Physicians May Be Less at Risk for Burnout Than Baby Boomers - PMC (nih.gov)
• Older adults can use technology: why healthcare professionals must overcome ageism in digital health - PMC (nih.gov)
• How Gen Z are reshaping the healthcare industry | World Economic Forum (weforum.org)