Women In MICCAI announce next session in the MICCAI 2026 Webinar Series - May 28
Wednesday 20th May 2026
Women in MICCAI (WiM) is happy to announce the second webinar in the WiM 2026 Webinar Series:
Is it Facebook or Slack? Medical AI and the Mode of Coordinating Expertise in Acute Stroke Care
Presenter: Dr. Netta Avnon, Research Professor of Sociology, Western University, Canada
Join us on Thursday, May 28, 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM PDT / 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EDT / 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM UTC
Acute stroke care is a medical emergency managed by the Code Stroke protocol. Code Stroke coordinates a network of two healthcare organizational types, four specialties, and five ranks through a serial, hierarchical, and distributed workflow. Increasingly, artificial intelligence (AI) devices with computer vision algorithms for stroke detection, paired with agentic mobile apps to streamline workflows, are being integrated into this network.
From 2022 to 2024, we conducted an in-depth field study of an AI device integrated into four hospitals in Israel’s largest health maintenance organization. We found that medical doctors used the AI device sparingly. The main reason for the limited use of the medical AI device was its attempt to disrupt the mode of coordination in acute stroke care. The AI device came prepackaged with a consolidated alert, visualization, chat, and digital logging mobile app designed to integrate into stroke care a parallel processing, flat hierarchy, and radical transparency coordination mode drawn from the tech industry. The app’s incompatibility with the serial, siloed, and hierarchical coordination of Code Stroke led to its marginalization by the doctors.
We conclude that AI devices should be studied in real clinical settings, considering not only narrow performance metrics but also the coordination mode of expertise.
About the speaker
Dr. Netta Avnon is a Research Professor at Western University and acts as an independent consultant for Columbia University. She is a sociologist specializing in science, professions, and expertise, with a focus on women and expertise as well as the integration of AI into expert labor across domains. In recent years, she has been leading an international study on AI in Acute Stroke Care and in imaging more broadly. Her research centers on the implementation of AI and smart technologies in healthcare; specifically, in stroke care, she focuses on inter-hospital, multi-specialty, multi-rank emergency care. Netta is an active feminist committed to ending vertical gender segregation in high-status professions like medicine, currently concentrating on addressing reproductive bias within the OBGYN science and profession. She is married, a mother of three boys (having tried for a girl), and enjoys hiking, playing piano, funny videos, and watching quality films in her free time.