In this episode of The Agentic Patient, a Faces of Digital Health series on how patients are using AI to find answers the healthcare system didn't give them, Tjasa Zajc talks to Elena Ikonomovska, CEO and Co-Founder of Diadia Health. She stopped trusting chatbots with her own health data — after building an AI company on the problem they create.
Elena talks about her two-and-a-half-year journey that followed her mother's death and her own dismissed symptoms — and the causal-reasoning AI she built in response.
Guest: Elena Ikonomovska, CEO, Co-Founder & Chief AI Officer, Diadia Health
What the conversation covers:
- Why Ikonomovska calls generative AI's confident wrong answers "faithful hallucinations"
- Building a causal-reasoning engine instead of using large language models for clinical decisions
- Why lab "normal" ranges differ by genetics — and what that means for your bloodwork
- Her own dismissed thyroid and pre-diabetes symptoms, and what a two-and-a-half-year diagnosis journey actually looks like
- The risk of self-diagnosing from ChatGPT-style tools, and what to ask any AI health platform about your data
- Why she believes AI should strengthen, not replace, the doctor-patient relationship
- Early clinical results: agreement rates with physician judgment and reductions in diagnostic trial-and-error
- The equity risk in AI-driven healthcare — who gets access to validated tools, and who doesn't
Chapters:
00:00 Intro: why The Agentic Patient series exists
02:30 Meet Elena Ikonomovska and the case for causal AI
03:35 From two decades in machine learning to health AI
07:07 What the model needs: blood panels, genetics, and interactions
09:45 Elena's own diagnosis journey — two and a half years to answers
11:32 Why she wouldn't trust chatbots with her health today
12:40 "Faithful hallucinations": the hidden risk in generative AI
15:04 Inside a causal-reasoning engine built without generative AI
17:32 What happens when clinicians outsource reasoning to chatbots
21:06 Redefining "normal": genetics and personalized lab ranges
27:08 Women's health data gaps and the DTC testing boom
28:13 Strengthening, not replacing, the doctor-patient relationship
31:42 Chatbot safety advice: what patients should never share
38:07 Clinical validation, agreement rates, and what's next
Faces of Digital Health:
Website: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com
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Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/faces-of-digital-health/id1194284040
Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com
The Agentic Patient series hub: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/agentic-patient-blog
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