In Conversation: Patrick O'Shaughnessy, DO

Few voices in healthcare technology carry as much practical weight right now as Patrick O'Shaughnessy, DO, President & CEO, Catholic Health (Long Island). In a wide-ranging conversation conducted by Becker's Hospital Review, Patrick 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

A deliberately two-speed AI strategy - moving quickly where value is proven while keeping governance and ethics reviews slow and careful, favoring tools that augment staff over autonomous ones.

“Our strategy is more augmented AI.”
- Patrick O'Shaughnessy, DO, in conversation with Becker's Hospital Review

Conversation highlights

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 conversation is a study in how theory meets the operating reality of healthcare. At Catholic Health (Long Island), 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

For HealthTech Cube readers, the takeaway is less about any single tool and more about the operating discipline behind it: technology follows strategy, never the reverse.