Flight Path Ep. 1: Teri Thomas on a distributed imaging workforce and trusted AI

Teri Thomas, Chief Executive Officer, Mach7 Technologies. Hosted by Mike Moore. Runtime 28:28.

Episode summary

One year into the CEO seat at Mach7, Teri Thomas sits down with host Mike Moore to open Flight Path. She traces her path from the bedside through Epic, Orion Health, Volpara and Lunit, shares what a year of customer visits taught her about a now-distributed imaging workforce, and makes the case that trustworthy AI in imaging starts with data health systems can actually reach and use.

In this episode

• Why Teri traded a clinical path for health technology, and the mentor math that convinced her
• What surprised her most in year one: customers and imaging teams working from everywhere
• The day deployment flexibility kept one health system off diversion during a cloud outage
• Cybersecurity as a daily concern for imaging leaders
• The case for liquid imaging data, foundation models, and a real trust threshold for AI
• Keeping the human in the loop, and a five-year outlook where software learns the user

Chapters

• 00:00 — Welcome to Flight Path
• 00:38 — One year in as CEO
• 01:13 — From the bedside to health tech: Teri's path
• 06:11 — The math of impact at scale
• 09:38 — What surprised her most: a distributed imaging workforce
• 13:50 — Why deployment flexibility matters: the day flexibility prevented a diversion
• 16:16 — Cybersecurity as a constant
• 18:07 — AI and the case for liquid imaging data
• 23:34 — Keeping the human in the loop
• 24:32 — When speed gets personal: a broken ankle in Korea
• 27:02 — Five-year outlook: software that learns the user

Three moments worth the timestamp

06:11 — The math of impact at scale. A mentor did the arithmetic for her: one clinician, or the technology millions of patients touch.

13:50 — "We would have been on diversion if it wasn't for Mach7." A customer's words, recounted by Teri, about the day a cloud outage met on-premises access.

27:02 — "AI will learn the user more than the user learns the software." Her five-year read on where the imaging experience is headed.

About the guest

Teri Thomas is CEO of Mach7 Technologies. Before Mach7 she spent more than two decades at Epic and held leadership roles at Orion Health, Volpara and Lunit, spanning electronic health records, interoperability, breast imaging and diagnostic AI. She began her career on a clinical path as a nursing assistant.

Read the companion piece

The data has to move first: why trustworthy imaging AI starts with access — a closer look at population fit, external validation, and what it takes to build AI on your own patients.

About Flight Path

Flight Path is Mach7's show about where healthcare imaging is going and the people helping it get there, hosted by Mike Moore. New episodes every other Tuesday.

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