Season 6 - Episode 7 - Wins with Tight Budgets - The Real Path to AI Capability in a Cash Strapped Sector"

Season 6 - Episode 7 - Wins with Tight Budgets - The Real Path to AI Capability in a Cash Strapped Sector"

July 9, 2026 · 37 min · Season 6 · Episode 7

About this episode

Lachlan MacBean discusses building AI capabilities in healthcare with limited funding and the strategic decisions made along the way.

Healthcare has some of the highest ambition and the tightest funding for AI of any sector. In this episode Lachlan MacBean walks through how his team built a ten person AI capability without a dedicated AI budget, the partnering model that made it possible, and why they made the call to shut down an early project despite strong results. Key discussion points Joining three months before COVID and the operational chaos that followed, and how the crisis proved the value of the analytics function The partnering strategy: using clinicians' grant funding and dual academic clinical roles to fund AI work that wouldn't otherwise get a business case Structuring the team on a part revenue target model, operating internally like a consulting practice within the hospital A handful of models now running in production, built on a mix of structured data and clinical notes Why an early AI project got strong results but was shut down: a solution looking for a problem, and a pricing model that made it commercially unsustainable at the time The "shark tank" process now used to pressure test new ideas before committing delivery resources Keeping teams engaged through all hands meetings, a cross…

People in this episode

Host: Konnexus

Guest: Lachlan MacBean

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Konnexus, hospital

Places: COVID

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