Fireside Chat: Bernd Montag

Siemens Healthineers CEO Bernd Montag PhD joined Giles Boland MD and Milton Hsu MD for a conversation about artificial intelligence, medical imaging, and how technology changes the work clinicians actually do.

Montag recalled reading about the arrival of the pocket calculator and the fear that it would diminish professional expertise. Instead, technology helped clarify that a job's value was never the mechanical task alone. A CFO is not a calculator, and a radiologist is not simply a pattern recognizer.

He sees the same issue playing out with AI in healthcare. Hospitals may have sophisticated tools available, but adoption stalls when organizations introduce technology without helping clinicians redefine how their work changes around it. Montag also challenged the idea that imaging should be viewed primarily as a radiology function, connecting it instead to earlier detection, treatment selection and therapy across cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke and Alzheimer's disease.

Scale came with a condition. Larger healthcare systems should deliver better, less expensive care. If consolidation produces only greater negotiating leverage, Montag argued, it has missed the point.