HIT Leaders and News

VA AI Contract Strategy Raises Veteran Care Stakes

Jason Free — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 19:31:07 +0000

The Department of Veterans Affairs is signaling that healthcare technology contractors will be judged less by incumbency and more by their ability to support modernization, artificial intelligence, and measurable operational outcomes. That message may sound like a procurement shift. In practice, it is a care delivery issue.

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Telehealth Billing Compliance Risks Are Rising in Behavioral Health

Jason Free — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 19:21:54 +0000

The $300,000 False Claims Act settlement involving aptihealth should not be treated as an isolated behavioral health billing dispute. It highlights a larger compliance problem facing telehealth providers as virtual care expands faster than the controls needed to govern documentation, patient communication, attendance, and revenue cycle activity.

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Breast Cancer AI Screening Study Shows Six Year Early Detection Potential

Jason Free — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 12:33:19 +0000

A new mammography AI study should be read as both a promising signal and a governance challenge. The findings suggest that commercially available AI-based computer-assisted detection systems may identify elevated breast cancer risk years before radiologists make a diagnosis. That possibility could eventually reshape screening strategy, supplemental imaging decisions, and risk-based follow-up.

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Novo Nordisk Data Breach Exposes Clinical Trial Privacy Risk

Jason Free — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 11:24:48 +0000

The reported cybersecurity incident at Novo Nordisk is a reminder that clinical research data, even when pseudonymized, remains sensitive infrastructure for drug development, regulatory trust, patient participation, and healthcare professional engagement.

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Healthcare AI Progress Depends on Data Strategy First

Jason Free — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 13:19:33 +0000

Healthcare’s AI investment surge is colliding with a familiar constraint: the industry is trying to deploy advanced automation on top of fragmented, aging, and poorly synchronized data systems. That mismatch may explain why so much AI activity feels busy but not transformative.

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CMS Health Technology Office Sets Federal Digital Health Strategy

Jason Free — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 10:11:30 +0000

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has created the Office of Health Technology and Products, a move that deserves more attention than a routine federal reorganization. The new office formalizes a broader shift inside CMS from technology oversight as a regulatory function to technology strategy as an operating function.

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NYC Health Hospitals Data Breach Raises Public Healthcare Cybersecurity Stakes

Jason Free — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 12:22:27 +0000

The reported cybersecurity breach affecting more than 1.8 million people connected to NYC Health + Hospitals is a warning about the scale of cyber risk now sitting inside public healthcare infrastructure.

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AI Drug Discovery Finds Hidden Cancer Protein Pocket

Jason Free — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 11:57:00 +0000

Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have identified a hidden drug-binding pocket in PKMYT1, a cancer-related kinase involved in cell growth and division. The finding matters because it points toward a more selective route for drug design, while also exposing a central limitation in current AI drug discovery: models can predict known protein structures with striking power, but still miss biologically important states that only appear through experimental work.

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North Carolina AI Medical Billing Bill Targets Upcoding and Denials

Jason Free — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 11:02:44 +0000

North Carolina’s debate over artificial intelligence in medical billing is a preview of a broader policy conflict coming for healthcare: how to regulate algorithmic influence before it becomes embedded too deeply in reimbursement, utilization review, and claims operations.

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Healthcare AI Policy Index Exposes Governance Fragmentation

Jason Free — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 10:50:16 +0000

The new Health & AI Policy Index from researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai offers a timely warning for healthcare leaders: artificial intelligence policy is growing rapidly, but not coherently enough to give hospitals a simple governance path.

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