Making Care Make Sense: AI, Fragmentation, and the Patient in the Middle

Patients forget most of what happens in a visit, providers cannot see what the last provider did, and the record that is supposed to tie it all together reads, in Dr. Kaitlan Baston’s words, like “a giant junk drawer.” Her fix is not a smarter model. It is a clearer record, with the patient at the center. “We aren’t necessarily fixing universal healthcare,” she says, “but we are fixing the universal record.”

Dr. Kaitlan Baston is the Founder and CEO of Vinyl Health and a former New Jersey Health Commissioner who has practiced primary care and addiction medicine and run a safety-net hospital. She joins host Dr. Junaid Kalia with co-hosts Dr. Isha Mannering, DR GPT™ Harvey Castro, and Edward Marx to talk about what it actually takes to make fragmented care make sense.

“We aren’t necessarily fixing universal healthcare, but we are fixing the universal record. Make sure the patient’s at the center.” Dr. Kaitlan Baston, Vinyl Health

Vinyl, as she describes it, is a personal health assistant for a patient and their family. It translates the record into plain language, so the education a pulmonologist gives about an inhaler, the part that never makes it into the Epic note, is actually captured. It runs an AI note-taker during the visit so a parent can calm a crying baby and still walk out with a summary and a clear list of to-dos. And it builds a doctor-in-the-loop summary page that surfaces what matters at the top of the chart, including the human details, so the clinician can walk in and say “how are the kids?” and make the connection before the clock starts.

The panel pushes the fragmentation point hard. Dr. Isha Mannering describes the chaos of a pediatric visit with siblings in the room, and admits that even she, a physician, gets home unsure what order to follow. Dr. Junaid Kalia counts the 16 different channels records move through and lands on the absurdity that most medical data still travels by fax in 2026. Dr. Baston contrasts all of it with Taiwan, where you walk into a clinic and are seen the same day, at a fraction of the cost. DR GPT™ Harvey Castro shows the do-it-yourself version, a personal digital twin built from his genetics, wearables, and records that he can simply talk to. And Edward Marx reports from Nebraska Medicine, one of the most aggressive AI-adopting health systems he has visited.

The closing thread is trust and control. Dr. Baston’s core principle is that people should hold and control their own health information, because “when things are completely free in the world, you are the product.” Dr. Kalia adds the uncomfortable coda: your medical record already sells for about two dollars on the black market, which is exactly why he argues for AI built by physician-led teams with a real history of governance and ethics.

What you’ll discover

• [00:54] From integrated care to Vinyl Health
• [02:07] The EHR as a “junk drawer”
• [03:02] The AI note-taker that lets you be present
• [05:12] Care-management duplication and the “I need a ride” fix
• [06:00] 70% of medical data still faxed
• [06:23] What Taiwan gets right
• [07:17] Harvey’s personal digital twin
• [08:08] Own your data: when it’s free, you’re the product

Connect with us

Dr. Junaid Kalia, Neurocritical Care Specialist, Founder of Savelife.AI™

DR GPT™ Harvey Castro, ER Physician, #DrGPT

Edward Marx, CEO, Advisor

Originally published on my Substack. Planning a session on patient experience and AI? Explore my healthcare AI keynotes.