AI can help clinicians focus on patients
Trained as a pharmacist, Chelsea Sumner ’19 now works for NVIDIA, helping health care companies use artificial intelligence.
UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy alumnus Chelsea Sumner ’19 (PharmD) works for NVIDIA, an accelerated computing company that enables artificial intelligence. Trained as a pharmacist, Sumner works as a health care and life sciences AI startup lead, helping companies receive the resources they need to use AI and AI tools to reduce administrative tasks for clinicians and focus on patients. Sumner spoke with The Well about the AI startup ecosystem and the role of AI in health care.
How does your work help AI startups?
Our work in health care at NVIDIA is segmented into digital health, digital bio and digital devices including medical imaging and instruments. We help companies in health care better understand how to integrate NVIDIA technology into their use cases, products, processes and accelerate at scale. We ensure they have the technical resources to use the latest advancements in AI through our NVIDIA Inception program. We are helping to democratize AI for health care, and my role allows me to be an advocate for our companies both internally and externally to NVIDIA.
What is the role of AI in healthcare?
Technology and AI are disruptors for all industries. Health care has been done in a certain way for hundreds of years, so it is prime for disruption. Current rural practices tend to be behind on what is latest. Generative AI and large language models are poised to change that. AI is poised to augment health care delivery in a way that is beneficial to patients. AI can help with patient matching. Leveraging AI and patient match decreases the time it takes to find the right sites for clinical trials, which is a huge process for pharmaceutical companies. AI makes it easier for physicians and clinicians to spend time with patients and have better quality patient-to-provider interactions.
How did the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy prepare you for this work?
During pharmacy school, I was interested in how technology could disrupt some of these systems and processes in health care. Having exposure to multiple different internships and opportunities to work interprofessionally with the other schools was invaluable. I also can’t say enough about how helpful my clinical experience throughout pharmacy school was. The school prepared me to know what interventions to make, how to work across teams to take care of patients, and how to make a meaningful impact on others. Despite not caring for patients directly anymore, I carry these lessons and the confidence I gained during my clinical experience to my day-to-day. Our work connects back to the fact that we’re all patients, and the school truly taught me that.
What do you enjoy most about your work?
I love the ability to see innovation at its inception. It is amazing to see technology in health care before it gets integrated at scale. While AI has been around for years, its applications in areas like drug discovery and digital health are just now being adopted with the revolution of ChatGPT. I love that I get to see not only the art of what’s possible now but also the future of what health care can be: digital twins of operating rooms, humanoid robotics helping people regain the ability to walk, personalized medicine using your specific genome. It’s an exciting time for health care and AI.
What’s your advice for people who have an opportunity to explore a new field?
When you have an opportunity that is out of your comfort zone that you may not feel qualified for — do it anyway. It’s something you’ll never regret, and you’ll learn something every day that you wouldn’t have if you stayed where you were. With the technology industry, don’t be afraid to fail. Charge towards failure, and you’ll become successful from those experiences.
