Jochen Reiser, President/University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) & CEO/UTMB Health System

In an interview with Invest:, Jochen Reiser, president of the University of Texas Medical Branch and CEO of UTMB Health System, discussed AI adoption in healthcare, innovation, workforce development, and UTMB’s focus on brain health research. “If you think of Silicon Valley on the West Coast and Kendall Square in Cambridge on the East Coast, now comes truly the third coast moment, which is the Texas moment,” Reiser said.

How is UTMB adapting its strategy as Texas and the Houston region continue to grow rapidly?

This is not a normal ecosystem in the sense of being stable and steady. It is in a massive growth phase. More people are coming to Texas than ever, and the state is growing economically through oil and gas, but also through technology, AI, space, healthcare, and healthcare delivery.

When you think of the Texas Medical Center, or UTMB as a health system, all of a sudden you have finance, science, healthcare, and macroeconomic influx through human capital. We have to be fast and ready for that moment. Business is not as usual because of that.

At UTMB, we made changes over the last two and a half to three years that allow us to be nimble. We rebuilt a leadership team that brings together healthcare leadership, the academic enterprise, the innovation enterprise, and central administration at the same table. That allows us to make decisions faster and with greater expertise.

What role do you see UTMB playing in the region’s future growth and innovation economy?

The innovation economy is extremely important because it is an alternative revenue stream for health systems. It is not just patient care and reimbursement in the classical sense. By contributing to innovation, you bring new care and products to people and allow industries to thrive.

Innovation has changed. It is not just biotech anymore. It is health tech around AI creation and implementation, devices, and computer-human interfaces. There is also innovation in implementation science, which asks how to translate discoveries into products that can be used by everyone.

Houston has always had the ambition to be a leader in innovation because of the Texas Medical Center and who we are as Texans. If you think of Silicon Valley on the West Coast and Kendall Square in Cambridge on the East Coast, now comes truly the third coast moment, which is the Texas moment. That is around AI, health tech, space, and these new discoveries coming down. This is the third coast moment for the Houston region that really brings us to the forefront of innovation in the next three to five years.

There is also a particular role for brain health and mental health research and innovation. Houston’s Project Metis is trying to create a brain transition for the region following the successful energy transition that happened over the last decade.

Why do you believe brain health and dementia research will become increasingly important?

If you look at all the technology that came out in the last 30 years, we can call this the digital revolution. Since about five years ago, we are in what we call the cognitive revolution. AI is coming fast.

People have recognized that human brains are not keeping up with all the technologies coming our way. We are overwhelmed. We all know what it feels like at the end of the day when you realize you were on your phone for 10 hours.

People have recognized over the last several years that we have to invest in actual intelligence, in our brains, and in our mental health. Mental health and brain health can be looked at under normal conditions or disease conditions, including dementia and cognitive skill problems.

By focusing on the brain and mental health, we are giving humans a new chance to flourish, get ready for AI, and actually be excited about AI. When you combine AI implementation with investment in brain health and mental health, it becomes a win-win for humans.

At UTMB, we became the first university to say we will focus fully on brain health and mental health. The state of Texas has also provided a $3 billion dementia prevention research institute, allowing Texas to become a leader in this area over the next decade.

How do you balance opportunities around AI with concerns about regulation, workforce impact, and patient trust?

Safety, connectivity, and trust have to go in parallel. There is so much happening, and it is happening fast. We cannot pause everything and spend two years on AI safety. We need massive parallel efforts.

Within UTMB, we have expertise around safe data management and safe AI implementation and creation. We are also working with the entire UT System, which includes 13 institutions. We share information and are building overarching safety structures.

We also have to build trust with the workforce because people are worried that they might be replaced in part by technology. By allowing employees to train up their skills and move into more strategic tasks, they can grow while smaller tasks move over to technology.

At UTMB, we are seeing strong excitement for the adoption of AI. UTMB is a leading organization in the creation and adoption of agentic AI. We also adopted a connectivity and empathy app that allows employees to find and recognize each other.

How is the role of academic medical centers changing when it comes to entrepreneurship and industry partnerships?

The traditional model was that universities discovered something and then let others figure out how to commercialize it. Incredible products were produced, but universities did not benefit significantly.

Today, by partnering with AI companies, universities can gain value without putting in large amounts of capital. What we deliver is partnership around the safe use of our data. AI companies are technically excellent, but they are not always experienced in how to adopt this in a relevant way in a health system or university.

By forming partnerships, bringing our data, and making smaller investments, we can create alternative revenue streams that can later be reinvested in academic programs, student education, and innovation.

What staffing and talent challenges are most affecting UTMB today?

Every healthcare institution has staffing issues. We constantly need nurses, doctors, and staff. We are addressing this in multiple ways.

We wanted to become more than just a Galveston institution, so we are more active in the Houston area and throughout Texas. UTMB has also taken a bold step forward in the global market, and we have seen more applicants coming from across the United States who want to work with us.

At the mid-level and other positions, we created apprenticeship programs that allow people to continue doing their jobs while being paid and training for the next level. We are creating an incubator from within that allows people to be promoted and get the skills and education needed.

With AI, we also have a chance to break the curve of workforce growth. We can keep our number of employees steady and still grow because AI will help us with revenue cycle, insurance, utilization, and other areas.

What are your top priorities for UTMB over the next two to three years?

We have begun to focus more on brain health and mental health. We want to create more programs around that, including lifestyle clinics that help people optimize brain and mental function.

UTMB has signed a contract as the anchoring institution for Blue Zones, so we are turning Galveston into a Blue Zone. That will be a four- to five-year runway program.

You will see innovation across UTMB in brain health, mental health, Blue Zones, and AI. But the one thing we will never change is taking care of people. We want to continue to be the provider of choice. UTMB is the main provider for Texas prison healthcare, and we will continue to fulfill that mission.

Three years into the job, I am pleased to say that the financial position of UTMB as a whole has massively grown, which allows us to stay nimble and seize new opportunities. We opened an outpatient center in Friendswood, which was essentially full overnight.

I am optimistic for the future, but we can only do this if we do not forget to invest in our workforce and allow them to go to the next level.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

When it comes to AI, hesitation is failure. We have to embrace AI, and we cannot stand on the sidelines. We also cannot just put AI into small pilots. We have to build it into entire workflows.

Healthcare has been somewhat broken for a long time. It is expensive and hard to access, and we always need to think of ways of improving that. AI will help us with that. Science and innovation are thriving while healthcare is challenged. With AI, we can bring this into a new synchronization.