When Trust Is Everything: Building AI for Physicians at Healio

24 snips

Jan 22, 2026

Guest

Jennifer Deal

In this discussion, Jennifer Deal, Senior VP at Healio, Casey Utley, Senior UX Designer, and Matthew Skepner, VP of Technology, highlight the vital role of AI in supporting physicians at the point of care. They reveal that clinicians seek assistance with patient communication over just clinical data. The trio shares insights on building a prototype in a weekend, the integration of lexical and semantic search in Healio AI, and the importance of trustworthy sources. They also emphasize how continuous physician feedback shapes the product's development, ensuring it meets actual user needs.

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INSIGHT

Trust Is The Primary Adoption Driver

Physicians need quick, trusted answers at the point of care rather than long literature searches.
Trust and credible sources are primary drivers for adoption of Helio AI, not novelty of the model.

INSIGHT

Physicians Want Communication Help

Physicians often asked for help with patient communication and empathy rather than only clinical diagnosis.
That shifted Helio AI to produce more empathetic, communication-focused responses.

ANECDOTE

Weekend Prototype Built From Figma

Matthew Skepner built a working product prototype over one weekend using tools like Cursor from their Figma mockups.
They included a feedback form tied to each query to collect prompt and response ratings from physicians.

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Guests

Jennifer Deal – SVP of Product Development, Healio
Casey Utley – Senior UX Designer, Healio
Matthew Skepner – VP of Technology, Healio

What we cover in this episode:

Why physicians need AI at the point of care—and how they actually use it (hint: it's preparation, not bedside)
The surprising discovery that physicians wanted help with patient communication and empathy, not just clinical answers
Building a working prototype in a weekend with Cursor after starting with Figma mockups
How Healio's RAG system combines lexical search, vector search, and semantic search across multiple trusted sources
Why "just use PubMed" isn't simple—five different ways to access the same data, each with trade-offs
Designing citations that physicians trust: subscripts, hover states, and progressive disclosure
Serving contextual ads while the LLM processes queries—a practical monetization approach
HIPAA compliance and input guardrails for masking personal health information
Eight LLM judges for evals: safety, medical accuracy, faithfulness, relevancy, completeness, reasoning, clarity, and overall quality
Why physician feedback trumps LLM-as-judge feedback in high-stakes medical contexts
The role of the Healio Innovation Partners in ongoing discovery and validation

Resources & Links

Healio — Medical news, education, and clinical guidance for healthcare professionals
PubMed — Database of biomedical literature
Cursor — AI-powered code editor used to build the prototype

Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Healio Team 01:00 Overview of Healio's Services 01:57 Introducing Healio AI 03:39 Addressing Physician Needs with AI 05:45 Building Trust in AI Solutions 13:56 Prototyping and Testing Healio AI 18:02 Refining the AI Product 21:48 Technical Architecture and Advertising Integration 25:16 Balancing Speed and Accuracy in AI Responses 26:30 Ensuring Credible and Trustworthy Content 27:41 Challenges in Data Integration and Web Crawling 29:00 Optimizing Search Strategies for Different Data Types 31:09 User Interface and Trust Building 34:31 Human Feedback and Continuous Improvement 35:41 Guardrails and Evaluations for Reliable AI 39:11 Experimenting with LLM as Judges 45:13 Future Directions and User-Centric Design