Photo credit: Courtesy of Dr. Tomlinson
As artificial intelligence reshapes healthcare, few leaders are as uniquely positioned to navigate its possibilities and challenges as Dr. Mu Tomlinson, the award-winning physician and CEO of Vituity. Recognised among Modern Healthcare’s top leaders and featured by D Magazine, Forbes, the Los Angeles Times and CBS, Tomlinson has emerged as a powerful voice on the future of medicine.
Trained as an emergency physician, Tomlinson understands healthcare from the front lines. During his tenure with Adventist Health Central Valley Network, he served as Chief of Staff and established the network’s Department of Emergency and Diagnostic Medicine. As Medical Director of Adventist Health’s Hanford and Selma Emergency Departments, he introduced innovative approaches to emergency care while focusing on the realities physicians and patients face.
Today, Tomlinson is particularly focused on AI’s potential to transform healthcare—not by replacing physicians, but by enhancing clinical workflows, supporting precision medicine and helping address some of the system’s most persistent challenges. His perspective reflects a broader belief that technology is most powerful when paired with human judgment, leadership, and purpose.
His influence extends well beyond medicine. In 2025, Tomlinson shared the stage with Venus Williams at Becker’s Healthcare Conference, delivered a keynote at the Black Student-Athlete Summit, and participated in a leadership panel at SXSW.
He is also the author of *Less Than One Percent*, featuring a foreword by Magic Johnson. The book challenges conventional assumptions about talent and leadership, drawing lessons from overlooked athletes and extraordinary underdogs to examine systemic bias and untapped potential in medicine.
Through his *Less Than One Percent* podcast, Tomlinson continues the conversation with influential voices spanning sports, technology and business.
For Tomlinson, the future of healthcare is ultimately about more than technology. It is about recognising overlooked potential, empowering people and building a system where innovation serves humanity.
In a recent interview with MoneyCentral Magazine, Dr. Tomlinson shared his perspective on how artificial intelligence is poised to transform healthcare—not by replacing physicians, but by enhancing clinical workflows, supporting precision medicine and helping solve some of the industry’s most pressing real-world challenges.
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming healthcare. From your perspective as CEO of Vituity, what are the most exciting ways AI is improving patient care today?
The most exciting thing about AI is that it can expose just how much of healthcare still runs on friction, delay, and avoidable failure. When AI helps us spot risk earlier, move patients faster, and reduce blind spots in care, that is real progress. For too long, healthcare has treated inefficiency as if it were simply part of the job, but it is not—it is a design flaw.
AI is increasingly being used in medical imaging and diagnostics. How do you see these technologies supporting physicians rather than replacing them?
AI should extend physician capability, not try to impersonate it. It can process patterns at scale, but it cannot carry responsibility, read a room, or understand the full human context behind a diagnosis. The best future is not one where doctors disappear, but one where they are finally freed to focus on the parts of medicine that genuinely require a doctor.
3. Administrative burdens are one of the biggest challenges doctors face. How can AI help streamline workflows so physicians can spend more time focusing on patients?
We have built a system that asks highly trained physicians to spend an absurd amount of time on tasks that do nothing to deepen patient care. AI can help strip away documentation overload, automate routine coordination, and reduce the clerical drag that has quietly hijacked medicine. If a doctor is spending more time feeding the system than treating the patient, then the system is broken—full stop.
4. You’ve spoken at major events such as SXSW and the Becker’s Healthcare Conference about the future of healthcare. What message do you most want healthcare leaders to understand about adopting AI responsibly?
Do not confuse adoption with strategy. Buying shiny tools is not leadership. Responsible AI starts with discipline: solve a real problem, protect trust, measure impact, and never ask clinicians to carry the cost of someone else’s experiment. Healthcare does not need more innovation theater; it needs leaders who are willing to challenge legacy thinking and hype with equal intensity.
5. Your book Less Than One Percent explores overlooked talent and leadership. How do those ideas apply to innovation and leadership in healthcare today?
The systems we build tend to reward what feels familiar, even when familiar is exactly what is holding us back. Some of the most disruptive thinkers and effective leaders are the people traditional systems misread, overlook, or underestimate. If we keep promoting people simply for fitting the mold, we will keep getting incremental thinking dressed up as transformation.
6. You’ve had an impressive journey from emergency room physician to healthcare executive. What lessons from the ER have most influenced your leadership style?
The ER teaches you to make high-stakes decisions without the luxury of perfect information, and that alone cuts through a lot of executive nonsense. It teaches urgency, prioritization, teamwork, and how to stay calm when the stakes are very real. My leadership style came from that environment: be clear, be decisive, respect the front line, and never mistake titles for usefulness.
7. Beyond healthcare innovation, you’re also committed to community impact through the 24/7 Foundation. Why is empowering young people such an important part of your mission?
The world is full of young people with extraordinary potential who are judged too early and supported too late. I know firsthand how powerful it can be when someone sees more in you than your circumstances suggest. Empowering young people is not charity; it changes who gets seen, who gets developed, and ultimately who gets the opportunity to lead.
8. Looking ahead, how do you envision AI shaping healthcare over the next decade, particularly in areas like precision medicine and equitable access to care?
AI is going to push healthcare toward earlier intervention, more personalized treatment, and smarter use of data than most systems are prepared for today. It could dramatically improve precision medicine and expand access, especially in places where expertise and resources are uneven. But let’s not kid ourselves: AI will not make healthcare more equitable simply because we want it to. If we are careless, it will scale bias with remarkable efficiency.