By Claudia Tanner
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Artificial intelligence and wearable devices will not transform health care unless medical systems rethink how they prevent disease and build trust with patients, a leading Brazilian hospital executive told Newsweek’s AI Health Summit.
Dr. Sidney Klajner, president of the Sociedade Beneficente Israelita Brasileira Albert Einstein in São Paulo, said technology could help doctors reach underserved communities and manage chronic illness. But he warned that simply giving patients more health data would not necessarily change their behavior.
“I think we must redesign in terms of a new conception what primary care means,” Klajner said.
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He pointed to the Oura ring, a wearable device that tracks measures such as sleep and stress, as an example of technology whose usefulness depends on whether people engage with it.
Klajner said he owned such a device but had been too busy to review its app in recent months.
“So, what’s the meaning of using this ring for me in the last two or three months?” he asked. “It’s the same as not using [it].”
The challenge, he argued, is not simply educating patients about technology but finding ways to engage them in healthier habits.
“We must engage the population towards a healthier life,” he said. “It’s not only about medication or smoking.”
Klajner said healthier living also depends on people's surroundings, including whether they have safe places to walk and exercise.”
He argued that governments and communities share responsibility for creating healthier environments. “It’s not healthcare professionals that [have] the responsibility” alone, he said.
“I think the conception must be born from the beginning using the technology,” he added.
Klajner said health systems also needed to address barriers that technology alone cannot remove, including shortages of specialists and limited access to care.
More than one in 15 women in this area give birth outside of a hospital, which is about four times the national average. Maternal mortality is also higher in the Amazon region, according to government statistics cited by Reuters in 2025.
In parts of northern Brazil, he said, a lack of specialist services has made it difficult for pregnant women to receive appropriate prenatal care, including “very young women below 15 years old”.
He described an AI project developed with support from the Gates Foundation that draws on medical research and clinical guidelines to assist primary care physicians treating pregnant patients.
The system listens to consultations and suggests questions, tests and possible next steps, he said, helping clinicians working without ready access to obstetric specialists.
But Klajner emphasized that such tools were not a substitute for stronger health services.
“The best solution is to help the specialists there,” he said.
New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene commissioner Dr. Alister Martin, speaking on the same panel, argued that trust and human connection were essential to improving care.
“You can only move at the speed of trust in healthcare and in public health,” Martin said.
He suggested AI could handle administrative work, including appointment scheduling, giving doctors more time with patients.
“AI is an enzyme,” Martin said. “What is its role? Its role is to catalyze human connection.”
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