Helping Healthcare IT Teams Do More and Avoid Burnout
UVA Health’s chief technology officer, Zeb Elliott, used the HIMSS Executive Connect program to redesign how his IT department engages staff. By adopting agile sprint cycles, mental‑health check‑ins, and automation tools, the team lifted output while curbing overtime. The changes drove a 30% drop in overtime, a 20% faster project delivery, and a 40% reduction in burnout reports. Elliott’s approach demonstrates that strategic leadership can boost productivity without overtaxing clinicians’ support teams.
AWS Launches Amazon Bio Discovery for AI-Powered Scientific Experimentation
Amazon Web Services unveiled Amazon Bio Discovery, a cloud‑based platform that supplies scientists with a curated library of biological foundation models (bioFMs) for generating and evaluating drug molecules. The service lets researchers train custom models on their own experimental data...
NHIT INSPIRED Takes Students From Mentorship to Employment
NHIT INSPIRED, launched by NHIT and HIMSS, pairs college students with HIMSS mentors and health‑tech industry partners. The initiative aims to bridge the clinical workforce gap by providing real‑world experience and networking opportunities. Early participants have already secured entry‑level positions...
Exclusive: Redesign Health-Backed Starfire Launches to Help Pharma Commercialize Therapies
Starfire, backed by Redesign Health, has launched an agentic commercial intelligence platform aimed at helping pharmaceutical and biotech firms commercialize therapies. The AI‑driven system overlays both external and internal data to automate patient‑journey analyses, cost‑outcome models, and executive‑ready presentations. Redesign...
Stryker to Acquire Amplitude Vascular Systems for Peripheral Vascular Portfolio
Stryker has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Amplitude Vascular Systems, bringing the latter’s intravascular lithotripsy (IVL) technology into its peripheral vascular portfolio. Amplitude’s CO₂‑generated pressure‑wave balloon catheter targets heavily calcified arteries, promising faster, more efficient revascularization. The companies will...
Sibel Health Wins FDA Clearance for Maternal-Fetal Monitoring Platform
Sibel Health announced FDA 510(k) clearance for ANNE Maternal, a wireless wearable that continuously monitors a pregnant woman's vital signs, fetal heart rate, and uterine activity. The platform adds visual and audio alarms plus an automated Modified Early Obstetric Warning...
Q&A: WestBridge Capital on AI-Driven Consolidation of Power, Startup Survival
WestBridge Capital’s Kamal Singh says AI chatbots like Anthropic Claude and OpenAI ChatGPT Health will displace generic wellness and nutrition digital‑health startups, but specialized solutions with proprietary data will survive. He predicts a consolidation where a few platform‑centric AI firms...
TEFCA Can Enable Patient-Centered Data Exchange
University of Iowa Health Care’s Josh Wilda highlighted that the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) could go beyond provider‑to‑provider connectivity to unify the nation’s fragmented patient portals. By establishing a single, standards‑based access point, patients would retrieve their...
b.well Announces Partnerships with Noom, Humana, Welldoc
b.well Connected Health announced strategic integrations with Noom, Welldoc and Humana, linking each to its national health data network under the CMS Health Technology Ecosystem. Humana will receive real‑time member data to streamline claims and provider queries. Welldoc’s AI‑driven cardiometabolic...
Korea OKs First Gen AI-Powered CXR Reporting Tool
South Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) granted Class III approval to Soombit.ai’s AIRead‑CXR, the nation’s first generative AI‑powered software for draft chest‑X‑ray reporting. The vision‑language model was trained on more than 14 million chest X‑ray studies and can identify...
AI-Enabled Smart Sensor Identifies Fatigue
Researchers at the National University of Singapore unveiled an AI‑enabled smart sensor that detects fatigue with 92% accuracy, a jump from 64% using conventional sensors. The metahydrogel‑based platform combines nanoparticle vibration damping and liquid filtering to deliver an ECG signal‑to‑noise...
CorTec Becomes First German BCI Company to Get FDA Breakthrough Designation
The U.S. FDA granted Breakthrough Device designation to CorTec GmbH’s Brain Interchange, a fully implantable brain‑computer interface aimed at stroke rehabilitation. The system combines cortical signal recording with adaptive electrical stimulation in a closed‑loop platform to restore motor function. CorTec...
Q&A: The Slack Channels Powering CMS' Interoperability Framework
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has launched an Interoperability Framework that relies on public Slack channels to bring together a broad coalition of health‑tech firms, consultants, and government agencies. By inviting any interested party to join as...
Century Health to Create Steatotic Liver Disease Database
Century Health is teaming with Virginia Commonwealth University to build an AI‑enabled clinical research database on steatotic liver disease, encompassing conditions such as MASLD, ALD and MetALD. The platform will pull structured and unstructured data from electronic health records, covering...
Are BP Rings the Future of Ward Monitoring?
South Korean firm Sky Labs has introduced CART ON, the world’s first cuffless blood‑pressure ring designed for hospital wards. The device uses a photoplethysmography sensor and AI‑driven algorithms trained on arterial line data to deliver readings within a 5 mmHg mean error...
Study Finds Smart Glasses Boost AI Scribe Accuracy and More Briefs
Flinders University researchers demonstrated that a vision‑enabled AI clinical scribe, built on Google Gemini and Ray‑Ban Meta smart glasses, achieved 98% documentation accuracy versus 81% for audio‑only systems. 4DMedical secured $57 million in funding and obtained EU CE marking for its...
Korean Company Behind Retina-Based CVD Risk AI Plans to Go Public
Mediwhale, a South Korean medical‑AI firm, closed a Series C round that raised 20 billion won (about $13 million), bringing its total capital to roughly $34 million. The startup’s retinal‑image platform, Dr Noon CVD, claims accuracy comparable to cardiac CT and is already deployed in more...
Insight Health Raises $11M to Scale Clinical AI Agents
Insight Health announced an $11 million Series A round, led by Standard Capital and joined by Kindred Ventures, Pear VC, Eudemian, 43 and ElevenLabs. The New York‑based startup provides Lumi, a patient‑facing virtual‑care AI assistant, and AI agents that automate clinical documentation and workflow...
AI Tools Simplify Complex Care Data, but Risks Persist
AI-driven platforms are increasingly helping patients decode complex medical records, offering simplified visualizations and personalized insights. However, experts like Leigh Burchell of Altera Digital Health warn that many of these tools lack HIPAA compliance, exposing sensitive health data to breaches....
Noom Acquires Compounding Pharmacy to Expand Beyond Weight Loss
Noom, the digital weight‑loss platform, has purchased Kentucky‑based Tailor Made Compounding, a 40,000‑square‑foot 503A pharmacy specializing in sterile and non‑sterile compounding. The deal enables Noom to broaden its behavior‑change programs beyond weight health into hormone‑replacement, peptide, and anti‑aging therapies. Tailor...
HIMSSCast: Nurturing National Standards for AI in Patient Care
The Nursing and Artificial Intelligence Innovation Consortium, led by FSU Dean Jing Wang, is tackling the gap between laboratory‑tested AI tools and real‑world nursing workflows. It aims to create national standards that embed nurses in AI‑enhanced clinical processes, ensuring predictions...
Q&A: Digital Workforce Looks to Expand Further Into the U.S. Market
Digital Workforce, a Helsinki‑based automation firm, serves over 200 large organizations and targets roughly $40 million in revenue this year. Its flagship Outsmart platform blends robotic process automation and AI to run entire patient‑care pathways, with a particular emphasis on healthcare...
Ophthalmic AI Co-Pilot Being Developed for Chinese Population
Hong Kong Polytechnic University researchers have built EyeAgent 1.0, a multimodal AI system that can recognize roughly 260 eye conditions using over 2.7 million images and 23 data types. The prototype cut diagnosis time by 56.8% and boosted detection rates by 24.5%,...
Trovo Health Rebrands as Thesis Care, Scores $45M and More Funding News
Thesis Care, formerly Trovo Health, announced a $45 million Series A round led by Oak HC/FT, bringing its total funding to $60 million. AI‑enabled revenue‑cycle‑management firm Adonis secured $40 million in Series C financing, raising its cumulative capital to over $95 million. Telepsychiatry platform Blossom Health...
Severance Hospital to Develop Online Tool for Calculating Early Liver Metastasis
Severance Hospital in South Korea has created an AI model, LiMPC, that predicts early liver metastasis in pancreatic cancer patients using routine blood tests. The model was trained on data from 2,657 patients and externally validated on 272 patients from...
US-Based Alzheimer's Network Adopts Korean Imaging AI and More Briefs
South Korean AI firms are expanding into the U.S. market as Neurophet signs an MOU with the Alzheimer’s Network for Treatment and Diagnostics (ALZ‑NET) to provide FDA‑cleared imaging software for amyloid monitoring, and JLK receives FDA 510(k) clearance for its...
Heidi Launches a Mic for AI Scribe – Why?
Heidi has introduced the Heidi Remote, a 21‑gram wearable microphone that provides up to 14 hours of battery life for AI‑assisted clinical documentation. The device operates independently of phones or Wi‑Fi, capturing audio offline and syncing later, and is built...
Qualified Health Raises $125M to Scale Generative AI in Health Systems
Qualified Health, a public‑benefit AI firm, closed a $125 million Series B led by NEA, adding investors such as Transformation Capital and Anthropic. The round will fund expansion of its generative‑AI platform that offers governance, risk‑alert, privacy safeguards and workflow automation for...
Legacy Systems Present Modern Challenges at the VA
Veterans Affairs is phasing out its decades‑old custom electronic health record (EHR) in favor of a modern, interoperable platform, CMIO Dr. Jonathan Nebeker announced. The new system will support standardized data exchange and enable integration of emerging digital tools such...
VR Simulation Boosts Nurses' Skills in Handling Aggressive Patients
Edith Cowan University researchers have piloted a 20‑minute virtual reality de‑escalation program, I‑VADE, with 221 nursing students, finding a statistically significant boost in confidence for managing aggressive patients. The immersive training emphasizes communication, situational awareness, and decision‑making, and captures interaction...
China Approves World’s First Implantable BCI
China's National Medical Products Administration has granted approval for the world's first commercially available implantable brain‑computer interface (BCI). Developed by Shanghai's Borui Kang Medical Technology, the system uses implanted electrodes to translate neural signals into commands for an assistive glove,...
AI Shifts Non-Communicable Disease Risk Prediction Beyond Genetics
Researchers at the University of Hong Kong have created CardiOmicScore, an AI-driven tool that integrates genomics, proteomics and metabolomics to predict cardiovascular disease risk. Using UK Biobank data, the model achieved C‑index values of 0.69‑0.82, markedly higher than traditional polygenic...
AI Doctor Startup Doctronic Garners $40M
Doctronic, a New York‑based AI doctor startup, announced a $40 million Series B round, bringing its total capital raised to $65 million. The funding, co‑led by Abstract and Lightspeed Venture Partners, will fuel expansion into pediatrics and deepen partnerships with academic institutions, payers,...
Exclusive: Health Universe Raises $6M for AI Agents for Medical Workflows
Health Universe announced a $6 million seed round led by Kleiner Perkins, bringing its total funding to $9.5 million. The startup offers an ONC‑certified AI workflow orchestration platform that pulls medical records via TEFCA and deploys custom agents to accelerate clinical tasks....
As Healthcare Technology Grows, Gaining Clinicians' Trust Is Vital
Healthcare technology is accelerating, but clinicians’ trust remains the linchpin for successful deployment. Senior Executive Changemaker Awardee Kassaundra McKnight-Young stresses that vendors must partner closely with clinicians to build reliable, workflow‑friendly tools. Such collaboration aims to streamline clinical processes and...
CT-Like Chest Imaging at the Bedside Sans Radiation?
Engineers at the University of Hong Kong have unveiled SonoMeta, an AI‑assisted ultrasound lens built from metamaterials that can image heart and lung structures up to 10 cm behind the rib cage with CT‑like resolution. Validation shows spatial resolution under 500 µm...
Australia OKs Coin-Sized Sensor for Hydrocephalus Management
Australian regulators have approved M.scio, a coin‑sized, fully implanted intracranial pressure sensor developed by Germany’s Miethke and distributed by B. Braun. The Class III device provides continuous, telemetric ICP data for up to four years and is available in Flat and Dome...
Newly Approved Lung Cancer AI in Australia and More Briefs
Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration approved Optellum's Virtual Nodule Clinic, an AI‑driven lung cancer detection platform already cleared in the US, EU and UK. New Zealand health‑IT firm Medtech Global launched an AI module within its Evolution practice management system that...
Healthcare Executives Must Adapt Decision Strategies as Crises Converge
At the 2026 HIMSS Global Health Conference, former VA deputy CIO Nathan Tierney warned that traditional leadership playbooks are failing amid intersecting financial pressures, workforce instability, cyber risks, and rapid tech change. He highlighted how executives often substitute endless meetings,...
Digital Health's New Challenge: Empowering Users without Adding Complexity
At the 2026 HIMSS Global Health Conference, leaders highlighted a growing tension in digital health: rapid innovation can add complexity for clinicians and patients. They showcased Mass General Brigham’s AI‑powered ambient documentation, which after a pilot with 800 clinicians showed...
AI Ethics and Regulation Discussed on HIMSS26 Day 1
On the opening day of HIMSS26, industry leaders debated AI ethics and regulation in healthcare. Sessions emphasized deploying AI responsibly, with a human‑centered approach that safeguards patient data and outcomes. Speakers highlighted the gap between rapid AI innovation and the...
Standardized Data Critical to Scaling AI, Healthcare Benefits
At HIMSS 2026, Intermountain Health’s chief strategy officer Dan Liljenquist warned that today’s health‑system model cannot survive mounting workforce shortages and rising demand. He urged leaders to treat interoperability and artificial intelligence as strategic engines, not mere technical check‑boxes. Intermountain...
Q&A: Sanford Health Bets on AI, Virtual Care to Expand Rural Healthcare Access
Sanford Health, the nation’s largest rural provider serving over two million patients across seven states, leveraged a $350 million donation to accelerate its virtual‑care program. The organization opened a Sioux Falls virtual‑care center that educates clinicians on digital bedside manner and hosts an...
Cognito Therapeutics Raises $105M for Neurotechnology Platform for Alzheimer's
Cognito Therapeutics closed an oversubscribed $105 million Series C round, led by Morningside Ventures with new investors such as Apollo Health Ventures. The capital will fund the readout of its HOPE pivotal study, FDA submission preparation, and commercialization of its Spectris neurostimulation...
Q&A: AWS Launches Amazon Connect Health to Streamline Healthcare Workflows
Amazon Web Services unveiled Amazon Connect Health, an agentic AI platform that plugs directly into electronic health records to automate patient verification, appointment scheduling, ambient documentation, and medical coding. The service, built on FHIR standards and Amazon HealthLake, offers a...
KeyCare Raises $27.4M to Scale Epic-Integrated Virtual Care Platform
KeyCare announced a $27.4 million financing round led by HealthX Ventures, bringing its cumulative capital to over $55 million. The Epic‑integrated virtual‑care platform connects health systems with independent providers across primary, behavioral, and urgent care. Funds will be used to scale operations,...
National Taiwan University Hospital Develops AI for Pancreatic Cancer Metabolic Profiling
Taiwan’s Academia Sinica and National Taiwan University Hospital have launched PanMETAI, an AI‑integrated metabolomics platform that analyzes roughly 260,000 metabolic signals from a 500‑microliter blood‑serum sample. Using deep‑learning on nuclear magnetic resonance data, the model achieved a 99% area‑under‑curve for distinguishing...
Can VR Be Used for Safe Fall Recovery?
University of Queensland, backed by NIISQ funding, is developing a virtual reality programme to teach fall‑recovery skills to people with spinal cord injury. Building on seven years of research, the project aims to improve confidence, independence and long‑term outcomes by...
$32M Series A Raised to Expand Australian Allied Health OS and More Briefs
Splose raised A$46 million ($32 million) in a Series A round to scale its allied‑health operating system across Australia, the UK and New Zealand, adding AI‑driven workflow automation and integrated payment processing. New Zealand‑based Wellumio secured NZ$7.28 million to commercialise its portable, AI‑augmented stroke imaging device,...
Vuno Continues 'Aggressive' Global Expansion with $7M Investment and More Briefs
South Korean AI health firm Vuno secured a $7 million strategic investment via perpetual convertible bonds to fund its aggressive global rollout of an AI‑driven cardiac arrest prediction platform, building on recent EU certification and deals in Austria and Germany. Indian...