In Conversation: Dave Lundal
SVP & CIO, Children's Minnesota - on why AI represents a bigger transition than the move to EHRs
Among the leaders shaping how care and technology converge is Dave Lundal, SVP & CIO, Children's Minnesota. In a wide-ranging conversation conducted by Healthcare IT News, Dave laid out a view of the industry that is both candid and immediately useful to the executives, clinicians, and builders who read HealthTech Cube.
The conversation
Why AI represents a bigger transition than the move to EHRs - building flexible infrastructure, setting an AI vision and governance, and why executives should personally use AI tools.
“We are at the beginning of a third era - the AI era.”
- Dave Lundal, in conversation with Healthcare IT News
Conversation highlights
Why AI represents a bigger transition than the move to EHRs
Building flexible infrastructure
Setting an AI vision and governance
And why executives should personally use AI tools
The bigger picture
The AI adoption question runs through every executive conversation in 2026. The evidence base is finally arriving: the largest controlled study of ambient documentation, published in JAMA, found clinicians saved 16 minutes of documentation time per day - but only a third of users hit the usage threshold for maximum benefit (our coverage). Meanwhile Rock Health has stopped labeling AI as a differentiator at all, because every company claims it - which is exactly why operating discipline of the kind described here separates winners from demo-ware.
The data-infrastructure backdrop makes this conversation timely: TEFCA crossed one billion exchanged health records this summer, up from 10 million in under a year (our coverage), while KLAS reports EHR purchasing fell 40% as capital shifts from record systems to the AI and analytics layered on top of them. Interoperability is no longer the constraint - deciding what to do with flowing data is.
It is a conversation that rewards close reading by anyone building or buying in this market. At Children's Minnesota, that thinking translates into daily decisions about where technology genuinely earns its place in care delivery, and where discipline matters more than novelty.
The HTC take
It is a perspective we expect to age well, and one that connects directly to the trends HealthTech Cube tracks across all eight of our coverage categories.