601 - How Artificial Intelligence Is Influencing the Way Healthcare Software Is Built

In this episode of Talking Health Tech, host Peter Birch sits down with Sean Walker, CTO of Alcideon, to explore how artificial intelligence is transforming the development of healthcare software. Walker shares his personal journey of becoming deeply immersed in AI tools, describing it as an 'AI disease' that consumed his focus for weeks as he sought to integrate AI into Alcideon’s software development process. He emphasizes that AI is not replacing developers but acting as a force multiplier—enabling engineers to work faster, produce higher-quality code, and focus on complex, strategic tasks. Key applications include using AI for rapid prototyping, generating code, identifying edge cases in testing, and building specialized agents for specific workflows. Walker also discusses the importance of context engineering and agentic workflows in ensuring reliable, high-quality outputs. On the clinical side, Alcideon has launched Concept Detection, a feature registered as a Class I medical device by the TGA, which uses AI to suggest SNOMED CT codes in real time during clinical note-taking—improving data quality and enabling better analytics and patient outcomes. A central theme is the necessity of keeping humans in the loop to maintain trust, especially given AI’s tendency to be confidently wrong. The episode concludes with practical advice for developers: focus on mastering context engineering, agentic workflows, and building sophisticated projects to future-proof their skills in AI-driven healthcare software development.