News roundup: Amwell narrows Q1 and full year losses, AMA urges Congress for guardrails on mental health chatbots, hospital at home study finds lower ED visits and lower hospital mortality

May 8, 2026 | by | No Comments

Amwell sees a light at the end of the tunnel while losses continue, as usual. Their Q1 closed with a reduced net loss– $10.3 million versus prior year’s $18.4 million and Q4 2025’s $25.2 million. Revenue was also lower: $54.9 million, down 18%, but exceeding their prior guidance. Revenue from subscriptions, Amwell’s current focus, of $24.9 million decreased about 23% from the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA also moved positively to a loss of $3.1 million versus Q4 2025’s $10.3 million. For their Q2, Amwell projects revenue in the range of $48- $52 million and adjusted EBITDA loss in the range of $2 to $4 million. Full year revenue remains at $195 to $205 million with adjusted EBITDA loss between $12 and $16 million, a reduction from prior projections. Healthcare Dive, Amwell Q1 statement

The American Medical Association (AMA) asks for more guardrails on AI mental health chatbots. In three letters sent to the House and Senate Artificial Intelligence Caucuses and the Congressional Digital Health Caucus, the AMA’s concern was around the emotional dependency on AI systems, the potential distortion of reality through prolonged interaction with chatbots. and the current lack of consistent safety protocols. They outlined several areas needing attention:

  1. Greater transparency in ensuring that users clearly understand when they are interacting with an AI system rather than a human being. Chatbots should not present as a licensed clinician or a human being. [See our earlier article on Pennsylvania’s suit against Character.AI]
  2. Clearer regulatory boundaries around how AI chatbots are used in mental healthcare, including diagnosis and treatment requiring oversight.
  3. Requesting that lawmakers direct agencies to establish a risk-based framework that clarifies when AI tools qualify as medical devices.
  4. Requiring developers to build safeguards, such as crisis-detection capabilities that can identify potential self-harm risk and direct users to appropriate resources and de-escalate harmful situations.
  5. Ongoing safety monitoring, mandatory reporting of adverse events, and stricter standards for tools used by children and adolescents.
  6. Limits on commercial influence, including restrictions or bans on advertising within mental health chatbots, and that chatbots aren’t ‘influenced’ by financial incentives.
  7. Robust data protection standards, including: limits on the amount of data collected and stored, safeguards to prevent unauthorized access or sharing of sensitive information, and clear user consent for data use.

Stanford’s recent research confirmed some common knowledge–that LLMs behind the chatbots pose significant risks by providing inappropriate responses, introducing bias and perpetuating stigma, which can result in dangerous consequences. AMA release, Mobihealthnews

Medicare beneficiary study compares hospital at home outcomes with traditional in-patient stays–and finds some good results. The JAMA Open Network published paper found that in over 15,000 patients (hospital at home, 4,174; in-patient 11, 697), treatment via “hospital at home was associated with significantly lower in-hospital mortality and emergency department (ED) use within 30 days of index admission discharge, with no significant difference in hospital readmissions within 30 days of index admission discharge compared with traditional inpatient care.” The study concluded that may maintain the same or better short term outcomes depending on “appropriately selected patients” (not specified) and that “future studies should evaluate implementation and equity”. The vast majority of patients in the hospital at home sample (nearly 97%) were urban. Healthcare Dive, JAMA Open Network

Character.AI sued by Pennsylvania on its chatbots posing as licensed physicians and psychiatrists

May 8, 2026 | by | No Comments

This takes AI hallucinations and chatbot dangers to a slightly higher level. The Pennsylvania Department of State and the Pennsylvania State Board of Medicine have filed a lawsuit requesting a preliminary injunction against chatbot developer Character.AI. The company, formally Character Technologies, Inc. of Redwood City, California, is charged with enabling its LLM chatbots to pose as licensed medical professionals, including psychiatrists, in violation of the state’s Medical Practice Act. that prohibits the unauthorized practice of medicine and false credentials. Their investigation of their chatbot characters, posing as therapists, invited users to discuss their mental health symptoms. In the key instance outlined in the suit, a chatbot presented as a physician and falsely stated it was licensed in Pennsylvania and provided an invalid license number. 

Character.AI’s chatbots are available for use by the general public. It has over 20 million active users worldwide. Anyone can go on the Character.AI website and register for free; a paid version costs $9.99 per month which provides priority access. According to the PA Professional Conduct Investigator (PCI), after creating a free account and his own character, he searched on ‘psychiatry’ and found “Emilie”. He presented with symptoms corresponding to depression. “Emilie” offered to complete an assessment for him as ‘within her remit as a Doctor’. “Emilie” represented herself as a physician graduate of Imperial College London, licensed with the General Medical Counsel in the UK with a full registration and with a specialty in psychiatry. When asked, “she” said she was also licensed in PA. The number “she” gave the PCI, however, was invalid. 

The Medical Practice Act prohibits engaging in the unlawful practice of medicine and surgery or purport to do so. The complaint seeks to restrain Character.AI in presenting its characters as licensed medical professionals.  Press release,  “Complaint in Equity”

Character.AI’s response, from a spokesperson quoted in The Hill, was to not comment on the litigation, to state that the chatbots were for entertainment and role playing, claiming that “We have taken robust steps to make that clear, including prominent disclaimers in every chat to remind users that a Character is not a real person and that everything a Character says should be treated as fiction.” In another statement to Becker’s, “We also add robust disclaimers making it clear that users should not rely on characters for any type of professional advice. Character.AI prioritizes responsible product development and has robust internal reviews and red-teaming processes in place to assess relevant features.”

Unfortunately for Character.AI, there’s a trail of additional lawsuits from families saying that the chatbot ‘characters’ led their children to mental health problems, self-harm, and suicide along with other forms of abuse. Kentucky earlier this year filed its own lawsuit in that the characters allegedly “preyed on children and led them into self-harm.” 

Its valuation stands above $1 billion and according to Crunchbase, between seed and Series A (both 2023), it has raised $230 million to date from Andreessen Horowitz, SV Angel, Greycroft, Elad Gil, and A. Capital Ventures.

Oracle steps back from the AI debt brink with $16.3B financing for MI data center, the Project Jupiter ‘clean energy’ experiment in NM, and a major Federal DOW contract

May 7, 2026 | by | No Comments

Perhaps the rabbit is being pulled from the top hat. Or it’s hungry. Three recent announcements are giving Oracle shareholders–of which founder Larry Ellison is a 40% holder–some confidence in a volatile market. While ORCL shares are slightly down year-to-date, in the past month since their massive layoff, Mr. Market has boosted them up close to 36% at time of writing, most of the runup in the past week. (Editor’s note: this analysis is meant to be directional and qualitative. It is detached from ‘stock picking’. For your Editor, the interest is in the future of Oracle Health, which is likely collateral damage from All This.)

Oracle is taking on $16 billion debt, this time largely funded by bond fund PIMCO. This funded a single data center campus in Saline Township, Michigan. Total financing announced in late April was $16.3 billion, anchored by PIMCO’s financing $10 billion of the bond tranche plus $2 billion in equity from Related Digital Infrastructure and Blackstone. It’s reported that this is the largest single-facility technology debt package ever assembled. PIMCO (Pacific Investment Management Company LLC)  is a bond fund, the largest of its type (active fixed-income), and a subsidiary of Allianz Global Investors. It stepped in because US banks refused for the reasons bulleted below.

What gives pause is the total debt picture that Oracle is taking on to develop data centers for clients–OpenAI primarily, but also Meta. 

  • $72 billion in total debt to finance the Stargate joint venture in Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin, and New Mexico. Other reports have indicated over $100 billion [TTA 10 Mar].
  • The PIMCO debt is structured as a 7.5% coupon with a 19.5-year maturity, with six years of interest-only payments followed by 13 years of amortization
  • Oracle’s long-term debt load has risen nearly 66% since the start of 2025.  Yahoo Finance
  • This is despite a BBB-negative credit outlook from S&P Global Ratings and Moody’s Baa2 Negative outlook (link), a major factor in why banks shied away from further financing.
  • $553 billion in performance obligations with OpenAI 

TNW discusses in a deeper dive the debt structure and why PIMCO could make this bet where banks could not.  The question it raises is whether the furious pace of data center building is another cycle of overbuilding–and if it is, will it be absorbed in time? The ominous parallels: the 2000s building boom in an earlier iteration of data centers, the fiberoptic boom of the early 2000s that broke WorldCom, Global Crossing, Winstar, Corning, and 360Networks, cloud overbuilding that left Amazon Web Services with years of excess capacity (it helps to have a deep-pocketed and not all that transparent parent), and others. This Editor would also liken it to the early years of 1980s-90s airline deregulation (too many airlines, too much debt, too many seats) and about a decade in the cruise ship industry where too many cabins were chasing too few people. These took decades and multiple bankruptcies to settle.

The Project Jupiter New Mexico Stargate data center is turning into an experiment to reduce the environmental/power impact of AI data centers. The alternative energy source for the Doña Ana County data center will come from fuel cells developed by Bloom Energy. The fuel cells have up to 2.45 GW of installed capacity and will replace the usual gas turbines and diesel generators, consolidating power into one single microgrid. How big this ‘microgrid’ will be is not disclosed. The data center campus is being built by a development company, BorderPlex Digital Assets, which is promoting this site as a “Tier 1 industrial engine for New Mexico”. 

Fuel cells generate electricity without combustion through electrochemically combining hydrogen and oxygen, producing water, heat, and electricity. Versus conventional power sources, they reduce nitrogen oxides emissions by approximately 92% and use a “negligible” amount of water. However, the overall picture is not quite that rosy. Other reports indicated that overall greenhouse gases emitted by the data center even with the fuel cell microgrid are estimated at 10 million tons per year, representing ~30% savings over a conventionally powered 14 million tons per year, the latter more than the cities of Las Cruces and Albuquerque. While preliminary construction is taking place, Project Jupiter is still awaiting approval from the New Mexico Environment Department and faces several lawsuits from environmental activists. SourceNM,  Oracle release

A Federal contract to expand the Department of War’s AI capabilities across their classified cloud network. No value attached, and details are naturally on the QT and strictly Hush-Hush, but Oracle’s May Day announcement says in about three ways that the agreement is for advancing AI capabilities as part of the DOW’s AI Acceleration Strategy by “enabling new capabilities across its three core tenets: warfighting, intelligence, and enterprise operations”. (Whew!) From the release: “This agreement accelerates the transformation toward making the United States military an AI-first fighting force and strengthens warfighters’ ability to maintain decision superiority across all domains of warfare.” Oracle release

Also Yahoo Finance

Chutes & Ladders: Ad trackers still on healthcare websites after lawsuits, FTC; the US Navy adds WHOOPs it up and expands Talkspace; HealthVerity to buy Symphony Health; Nervonik’s $52.5M Series B

May 7, 2026 | by | No Comments

In the Chutes department…remember the scandal around healthcare ad trackers back in 2022? After multiple lawsuits, Congressional hearings, Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and Health & Human Services (HHS) investigations that were supposed to curb their use three to four years ago, ad trackers are still being used by healthcare organizations.

A Bloomberg-Feroot Security investigation published this week uncovered that nearly all of the 20 health insurance exchanges (HIX) set up by states and the District of Columbia as part of the ACA use ad trackers. Information included sex, citizenship, and race. In New York State, the HIX shared the pages applicants visited during enrollment with TikTok, Meta, Snap Inc. and LinkedIn. Even details about incarcerated family members was shared. Over 7 million Americans buy health insurance through the state sites.

The problem is that Federal protections on personal information (personal health information–PHI, and personally identifiable information–PII) do not apply at the state level. State laws are inconsistent and incomplete. There are consumer protection laws, but again application is inconsistent. And rather neatly, the ad companies contractually place the compliance responsibility on advertisers. While ad trackers serve useful marketing and operational purposes for site analytics, data retention, and ad targeting, sending PHI and PII to third parties for that purpose violates privacy. 

The other 30 states use the Federal Healthcare.gov insurance exchange site. California removed trackers in 2025.

In 2022, ad trackers were on health system websites, large provider groups such as VillageMD, and e-prescribers such as the controversial Cerebral. Trackers such as Meta Pixel were disclosing all sorts of protected information that violated HIPAA and privacy guidelines to third parties such as Facebook, Instagram, and Google–and monetized. Most health systems removed them and Cerebral was fined for this as well as other issues. TTA 16 April 2024, 17 June 2022, 21 June 2022

The US Navy is sailing with WHOOP and Talkspace. WHOOP, through MIT Lincoln Laboratory, has been awarded a contract to support the US Navy’s Command Readiness, Endurance, and Watchstanding (CREW) program. The CREW program’s objective is to improve operational readiness by reducing fatigue-related risk. WHOOP’s fitness and health monitoring wearable will be used to integrate physiological data into the CREW system architecture by monitoring sleep, recovery, and strain.

To gain the Navy contract, WHOOP waged a successful Federal procurement battle with fitness ring Oura, which was awarded a $96 million contract in 2024. WHOOP argued that the specifications were too narrowly written in specifying a ring wearable and that the contract was awarded to a foreign company (Oura is based in Finland, WHOOP in Boston).  Certainly they had the funds to wage war with the Department of War; WHOOP scored a whopping $575 million Series G last month for a $10.1 billion valuation. The value of WHOOP’s contract via MIT is undisclosed. Oura has other contracts for projects with the Department of War. Release, Mobihealthnews

Talkspace is expanding its existing virtual behavioral health therapy program with the Navy to 40,000 sailors and families based at 13 Navy installations. They will have access to the Talkspace Go self-paced app and other offerings through their TRICARE benefits. Talkspace offers virtual therapy for anxiety, social anxiety, depression, ADHD, bipolar disorder, OCD, insomnia, postpartum depression, panic disorder, gambling addiction, schizophrenia, eating disorders and more, including medication refills. The company was bought for $838 million in March by Universal Health Services (UHS), a diversified for-profit health services provider, with the closing expected by Q3  [TTA 12 March]. There is no disclosure of the value of the contract nor the length. Mobihealthnews, Release

In M&A, ICON plc’s subsidiary Symphony Health is being acquired by HealthVerity. Purchase price is not disclosed. Symphony is a major company in the data analytics and clinical intelligence field with a massive commercial data repository, built on analyzing millions of patient claims and transactions for outcomes. ICON claims it stores 14 petabytes of data, sourced from over 900,000 providers and over 305 million patients. Clinical research organization (CRO) ICON acquired Symphony, founded in 2012 from four earlier health data companies, when it purchased PRA Health Sciences, also a CRO, in 2021. It was operated by ICON as a US subsidiary. The stated goal is to unite Symphony’s commercial health data with HealthVerity’s data exchange and patient identity systems. The deal is expected to close later this month. Release, Mobihealthnews

Medical device company Nervonik announced an oversubscribed $52.5 million Series B funding round. Their peripheral nerve stimulation (PNS) neuromodulation technology is used in high-motion areas of the body for chronic pain treatment. The financing was led by Amzak Health, with participation from Elevage Medical Technologies, U.S. Venture Partners (USVP), Lumira Ventures, Foothill Ventures, and Shangbay Capital, bringing their total funding to over $65 million. Their PNS integrates stimulation with advanced sensing to deliver more precise and personalized therapy. Nervonik completed a first human clinical trial of nerve stimulation for chronic pain in March 2025. Release, Mobihealthnews

Is the health tech business neglecting validated deep learning medical AI models versus less proven LLMs and generative AI?

May 6, 2026 | by | No Comments

Eric Topol, MD answers his own startling question, contrasting medical imaging with decision support for both clinicians and patients. His recent Substack ‘Ground Truths’ article (link below, free access) will make you think harder about what is being sold as ‘medical AI’ and what has actually been validated through multiple studies. 

Imaging AI is the Undiscovered–but Mapped Out–Country. Deep Learning (DL)-based AI models developed using medical imaging have substantial validation over more than a decade, and they are accelerating. There have been multiple validated studies using information from retinal scans as predictors of future medical conditions such as Parkinson’s, heart disease, stroke, and Alzheimer’s Disease. The retina is apparently a diagnostic gateway to nearly every organ; many studies have focused on it as scans are fairly routine. Other AI-assisted models have used deep learning to detect multiple health conditions: thymus, cardiovascular conditions, through mammography, colonoscopy, and importantly, detecting pancreatic and other cancers from computed tomography (CT) images done for other reasons. “Opportunistic AI” alone is being used in detection for a long list of health conditions. Dr. Topol’s point is that none of these new diagnostic methods have made it into standard practice, despite being used in other countries like China (PANDA) and with at least four companies developing uses for retinal AI to detect specific diseases.

Medical LLMs and Generative AI, on the other hand, are building what may be Castles In The Air.  Seemingly everyone is developing, funding, and selling a LLM-based chatbot, LLM-aided diagnosis, management, patient triage, and direct patient use. Unfortunately, they’re being sold without real, continuous evidence through rigorous studies over time. What studies there are, are generally simulations, small-scale studies, or individual case studies which need further real-world validation. The clinical trials, the infrastructure, and the monitoring for safety, effectiveness, and cost are simply not there yet, and it’s past time. (Raj Manrai quoted in Science). In addition, generative AI keeps changing making studies harder to track results over time. Dr. Topol’s conclusion: “In summary, there is very little evidence for LLMs benefiting patients or doctors for health outcomes.”

That is not to say, as Dr. Topol does, that AI won’t grow in usefulness in areas such as medical research and chart summaries, discharge instructions, translations, administrative work such as documentation of billing codes, clinical workflow, and insurance authorization. AI has already worked its way into RCM where no respectable company does not have an AI-enabled tool. The American Medical Association (AMA) study he cites indicates both current use and growing acceptance by physicians. (To this Editor, it resembles the telehealth usage graphs of a decade ago, and she expects the same progress.) 

He calls it a paradox between imaging AI and LLMs. This Editor calls it a shame that healthcare technology and investment keep chasing what’s easy, ‘sexy’, and can generate fast revenue/ROI. Not what is more difficult but proven, and that can have a potential huge impact on health outcomes.

Dr. Topol’s closing is fitting:

Let’s fix this paradox of medical AI implementation. It’s a two-fold and major undertaking. Amping up the use of medical AI where it’s proven and performing the clinical trials required to justify wide-scale adoption where pivotal evidence is lacking.

 
The Paradox of Medical AI Implementation

A quickie news roundup: ChatGPT for Clinicians unveiled, UHG to invest $1.5B in AI, Aidoc raises $150M, TriFetch raises $1.9M pre-seed, Boehringer Ingelheim & Eko Health partner on canine heart murmur detection

April 30, 2026 | by | No Comments

Editor’s Note: Our thrice-weekly Alerts bring TTA stories to your mailbox. Generally Friday, Saturday (for weekenders) and Monday. Subscribe here if you’re not getting it! No spam, promotions, or list selling. And written 100% by a human–ask my fingers!)

ChatGPT moves from healthcare enterprises to the clinician level. This new version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, ChatGPT for Clinicians, is designed to support clinical tasks like clinical search, documentation workflows, and deep medical research. It will be free for any verified physician, NP, PA, or pharmacist in the US, and is available now via their information page here. With its release, ChatGPT is also introducing HealthBench Professional, described as “an open benchmark for real clinician chat tasks across three use cases: care consult, writing and documentation, and medical research.” Release

ChatGPT for Healthcare was announced in January, but available to only a limited group of healthcare organizations.

UnitedHealth Group is having some better days. Last week on their earnings call, they announced that all units exceeded Q1 expectations. Their Q1 adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $7.23 was well ahead of expectations, with total revenues of $111.7 billion, up 2% versus Q1 2025. Q1 membership fell slightly to 49.1 million from 49.8 million at the end of 2025. Their medical cost ratio (MCR) decreased to 83.9% from 84.8%, nearly a full point.

UHG is ‘on track’ to invest $1.5 billion in AI this year, especially at Optum with self-service digital scheduling that includes AI-enabled tools guiding patients “to the right appointment in the right setting at the right time”, plus increased digital access for members and providers with AI-enabled tools at UnitedHealth Care. 

UHG has been heavily criticized for its treatment of rural healthcare providers and hospitals. Timothy Noel, CEO of UnitedHealthcare Business, said that “We will accelerate payments in all lines of business by 50% for rural hospitals and exempt rural healthcare providers for most medical prior authorization requirements. And we are building network partnerships between rural providers and leading regional health systems.”  Let’s see if the good news stretches into Q2. Healthcare Finance News

Aidoc’s $150 million Series E brings their total funding to over $500 million. The AI-assisted clinical imaging system for radiology, cardiology, vascular and neurovascular healthcare teams is designed to help them find and triage injuries and other health conditions. It also integrates coordination software for stroke and cardiovascular care. The round for the NYC-based company was led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, with participation from General Catalyst, SoftBank Investment Advisors and NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture capital arm). The fresh funds will be used to grow global presence and expand into other clinical areas. FDA clearance for its AI triage tool was gained in January. Mobihealthnews, Release 

TriFetch has a healthy pre-seed round. A $1.9 million pre-seed these days is rather unusual but TriFetch, an AI automation platform built for independent specialty clinics just emerging from stealth, nabbed it from Nexus Venture Partners, with participation from angels with backgrounds at Google, Hippocratic, Mercor, and MIT. TriFetch’s platform automates three workflows that dominate clinic operating costs (the “tri”): patient calls and scheduling, referral processing, and prior authorizations. It’s led by UCLA graduate computer science PhDs  and researchers Varuni Sarwal and Rosemary He. So far results seem impressive, with their pilots at California ophthalmology, cardiology, and gastroenterology clinics with results that save time and money. In one GI practice, with staff processing up to 100 referrals per day, TriFetch handled that workflow end to end, freeing roughly 16 hours of staff time daily, saving the clinic $200,000 per year.  Pulse 2.0/release

And for those who fetch for us, a diagnostic for heart murmurs. Boehringer Ingelheim, the German pharmaceutical company with a specialty in animal health, and Eko Health, a ‘reimagined’ stethoscope for heart and lung disease, partnered to develop a device and app to detect, visualize, and grade heart murmurs in dogs. This combines BI’s CANINEBEAT AI diagnostic algorithm, the Eko Vet+ app, and the Eko CORE Digital Attachment that connects to most single-tube stethoscopes.  Canine heart murmurs and cardiac disease are difficult to detect in early stages, where diagnosis and treatment can be most helpful. Availability of the combined technology through both BI and Eko has started in the US and UK, with Germany up next month. Additional markets will be phased in during 2026 and 2027.  Release 

Breaking: OpenEvidence app access terminated in the UK and EU

April 30, 2026 | by | 2 Comments

The hottest doctor reference source withdrew its medical evidence and decision support app from the UK and European markets. The news, reported in HIStalk on 28 April, is shocking–but not surprising. EU sources have predicted that this would be an outcome of the EU Artificial Intelligence Act. While the UK is not technically subject to EU regulation, the regulatory guidance to date has been along the EU Act’s lines; clearly a decision has been made not to enter the UK market accordingly.

The screen at left (courtesy of HIStalk) cites the ‘regulatory uncertainty regarding the treatment of AI systems’ and invites potential users to ‘make their voice heard’.

OpenEvidence is perceived by most to be the ‘up and coming’ platform for physician information. Its momentum was solidified with deals such as with Mount Sinai NY to integrate it within Epic [TTA 9 Apr], a $250 million Series D funding, and a monster valuation of $12 billion, making it the most valuable healthcare AI company in this solar system. It couples a free search engine trained on journals and clinical medical data only with an AI chatbot agent, making it easy to use for doctors. OpenEvidence partners with prestigious sources such as the New England Journal of Medicine and the American Medical Association.  It claims a daily average usage by 40% of US doctors in 10,000 hospitals and medical centers, achieving 18 million clinical consults in December alone. It recently added clinical trial matching to its capabilities, filtering trials by study design, enrollment status, and geographic proximity. To the US industry, OpenEvidence fills a gap in clinical intelligence that competitors Doximity (public), Epocrates (athenahealth), and Medscape (WebMD) have not to date, which certainly hurts the latter as tight pharma ad dollars reroute to OpenEvidence, as TTA has previously noted. 

The EU and UK constraint will likely not hurt OpenEvidence’s growth, but will hurt physicians in those countries by blocking a reliable source of information. It hits the NHS where it hurts, in its desires for technology advancement and integrating AI in practices. DistilledPost has a more UK-specific discussion of the consequences. Meanwhile, this Editor doubts that OpenEvidence will let this sit, and will eventually find a way towards compliance while growing outside of those markets, such as the Middle East and Asia. They have the resources, the name, and the growth. Hat tip to HIStalk. Letsdatascience, 

(Updated) Medtronic reports corporate IT systems cyberattacked. 500K UK Biobank records breached in inside job. Are med device and research organizations the new hacker happy hunting ground?

April 30, 2026 | by | No Comments

Medtronic’s cyberattack apparently contained. The company reported in a corporate statement on 24 April that an unauthorized party accessed data in certain Medtronic corporate IT systems. Medtronic has not identified, to date, any effects on, as specified: products, patient safety, patient needs, connections to customers, manufacturing and distribution operations, or financial reporting systems. They are determining any intrusion into patient information. According to their most recent SEC filings, Medtronic does not anticipate any effect on its business or financial needs.

The criminal hacker organization taking credit for it is the interestingly named ShinyHunters (what, not Shiny Stockings?) which claims it exfiltrated 9 million patient records with personally identifiable information (PII), 38 million records in total, as well as “terabytes” of internal corporate data. This immediately contradicts Medtronic’s anodyne corporate statement. However, the leak is no longer published on their dedicated leak website, according to Cybernews reported in TechRadar, which may indicate that some negotiations are going on. We’ll see if Medtronic will be changing their statement.

ShinyHunters is indulging in some chest beating, bragging on its leak website that they’ve stolen data from primarily consumer companies such as Zara, Carnival, 7-Eleven, Pitney Bowes, The Canada Life Assurance Company, and Hallmark. 

This fits a pattern of major healthcare hacking. Orthopedic medical device and robotics company Stryker was caught in a massive breach, wiping tens of thousands of systems and servers across the company’s network including applications such as Intune Company Portal, Teams, and VPN clients often used on personal devices. The perpetrator, Handala, is “linked to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) that targets Israeli organizations with destructive malware designed to wipe Windows and Linux devices.” This makes it political as a primary reason, economic secondary. [TTA 20 Mar]

Corporate IT is more vulnerable than production or patient-facing systems, according to Ensar Seker, chief information security officer at threat intelligence platform SOCRadar, quoted in MedCityNews. Corporate systems have high-value data but are less rigorously segmented and protected. MedTechDive

Another breach with international repercussions is that of UK Biobank. UK Biobank is a non-profit research database with information on 500,000 British citizens who volunteered their history and data. That data was found for sale on three separate listings on the Chinese e-commerce website Alibaba. Apparently no entity purchased the data. Unusually, the Chinese government assisted in the listings’ removal. (See below for the embarrassing reason why.)

Last Thursday (23 April), science minister Ian Murray told the House of Commons that the charity had informed the government about the data breach last Monday and thanked the Chinese government for assisting with the removal from Alibaba. Biobank has referred itself to the Information Commissioner’s Office. The hacker is not identified.

Dame Chi Onwurah, the Labor chair of the science, innovation and technology committee, scored her own Government, saying that it was “another blow to public confidence”, adding that it showed “little progress had been made” in protecting public data. Mr. Murray had assured her back in February that standards of public sector information security and data hygiene would improve.

The subjects joined the study over four years, 2006-2010, and at that time were between 40 and 69 years old. The information could include gender, age, month and year of birth, socioeconomic status, lifestyle habits, and measures from biological samples. The deidentified  information did not include names, addresses or contact details but what was included–genome sequences, hospital diagnoses, and biological measures–could be cross referenced and re-identified in experts’ view.

According to the Independent (via Yahoo UK), UK Biobank is the world’s most comprehensive dataset of biological, health and lifestyle information. It is used internationally and has been used to achieve improvements in the detection and treatment of dementia, cancers and Parkinson’s. DataBreaches.net

Update: the breach was apparently an Inside Job. The data was leaked dozens of times via GitHub. Three Chinese research institutions with legitimate access violated their data-sharing agreements. FTA: “It was not a hack. It was a contract violation by trusted researchers, and that distinction makes it worse, not better, because it exposes a vulnerability that no firewall can fix: the entire model of open research data sharing assumes that everyone who receives the data will follow the rules.” TheNextWeb

‘Behind the Emergency’–a well-done presentation about and approach to a specialized healthcare market

April 29, 2026 | by | No Comments

This is a follow up–and a short review–of last week’s mention of RapidSOS’s premiere of their ‘Behind the Emergency’ video. Your Editor viewed this today, along with most of the panel discussion following, which was aired as part of RapidSOS’ Innovation Day in Reno, Nevada. I have an interest in emergency services and first responders, having delved into their complex world during my time as the marketing director of the (now-defunct) Viterion Digital Health, and with a friend who is former EMS. Otherwise, I have zero connection to RapidSOS.

Being the cynical marketer and writer I am, I expected something more salesy, more commercial, more pitchy. This mercifully was not. It was informative. It used actor and endorser Jeremy Renner, plus testimonies from emergency service dispatchers and first responders, in a professional, low-key, and semi-documentary fashion. It was a video with real production values, increasingly a rarity. Not selling their AI assisted platform–the name wasn’t even mentioned–but in the circumstances of what public safety is, the people, what they do, and what they face, such as responding to emergencies in the rural backcountry of Nevada. Time is everything. It was about the problems they face and what emergency services need to be more effective. 

Why Mr. Renner? He was in a horrible accident in a snowcat three years in that backcountry, and became interested in emergency response as a result. While the benefit was clear–tech cuts the time for 911 public safety centers’ dispatchers and responders to coordinate multiple resources needed to respond to a call, and RapidSOS has the AI tech to connect the pieces more seamlessly and faster–it didn’t bang you over the head with The Brand or The Product even at the end. It may have been a 12 minute commercial, but it was a damn good one and a rare one today. You can view it here.

I also stuck around for part of the live panel that was with the CEO, Reno’s mayor Hillary Scheive, Reno’s director of public safety Cody Shadle, retired firefighter and founder of eFireX Jesse Corletto, and chaired by a company executive whose name I did not catch. It was again about the emergencies they typically face in both the city, the pressure on dispatchers in handling multiple situations, and more rural environments in Washoe County and how coordinating their resources over a large area is a huge challenge. Every connection made better saves time and is “good AI”. Drones, for instance, can get to a scene faster and feed data back to dispatchers as they coordinate, and responders as they are arriving.

A company that is beneficially using AI for the public, and an interesting, low-key exposition on how one company is integrating it into its services.

Editor’s note 1 May: Of interest to marketers re strategy is that the preview clip (on the website) is also being run as a RapidSOS commercial on streaming service Pluto. The spot closes with the logo and a link on a black screen. I suspect there are buys elsewhere.

Weekend Must Read: The 10 point pattern of failure of healthcare tech companies

April 24, 2026 | by | 1 Comment

This says it all for startups and early stage companies in the healthcare tech field. We feature today Haverin Consulting’s Stuart Miller, continuing his analysis of the signs that a health tech company, no matter how hot it may seem, is on its way to failure. All four, from startup to spinoff, were name companies that at one point were valued at over $3 to over $4 billion. All failed to deliver their main value propositions while having excellent ‘cover’ for a time. All were either parted out (assets sold) or were total hull losses.

Mr. Miller has drawn out 10 factors from the success, then failure of four companies: Olive AI, IBM Watson Health, Carbon Health, and Babylon Health–this last, one that TTA chronicled as far back as 2014, through the palmy Matt Hancock days, their questionable SPAC, and right to their near-complete dissolution. Back in February, we featured his article analyzing the Carbon Health failure. But all four have been profiled in impressive deep dives, available for subscribers on his Substack account. He does feature extensive free material and definitely is worth the follow.

This is not a long cuppa but very much worth your time and pondering. All This Has Happened Before

News roundup: (breaking) IKS Health finalizes TruBridge buy, Hims shares rise on independent Rx fills, Cala Health scores $50M, Joyful Health $22M, Tava Health $40M, actor Jeremy Renner partners with RapidSOS

April 24, 2026 | by | No Comments

Breaking: IKS Health finalized their acquisition agreement with TruBridge, Inc. Today’s (23 Apr) announcement did not contain an acquisition price, but IKS is offering shareholders $26.25 per share, a small premium above today’s close at $25.27. Both are revenue cycle management (RCM) companies and will strengthen capabilities in the rural and community hospital markets. Since TruBridge is publicly traded on Nasdaq with 14.91 million shares outstanding, the deal is a minimum of $391.4 million, considerably less than the rumored $675 million [TTA 15 Apr]. TruBridge’s largest shareholders (27%) have agreed to terms, but it is subject to the usual regulatory reviews with an expected closing in Q3. Otherwise, the press release is short on details, but IKS will finance the TruBridge buy with debt financed by Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, and Deutsche Bank.

The unstoppable Hims & Hers notches another rise with wider GLP-1 med access. Hims announced a deal with Eli Lilly to fulfill Zepbound prescriptions via Lilly Direct. It also permits its providers to prescribe medications that are fulfilled by independent pharmacies, which essentially opens Hims up to all GLP-1 drugs, with restrictions of course.

Once largely wedded to compounded weight loss drugs, to the point of running commercials on 2025’s Super Bowl that their obesity drugs are priced “for profits, not patients”, Hims & Hers has flipped the script in less than a year to be the online prescriber of nearly all brand name weight loss drugs. This started about five months after the Super Bowl when FDA finalized the ban on compounding those drugs. Pretty soon Hims was inking deals, starting with Novo Nordisk in May 2025 to prescribe Wegovy and fulfill through NovoCare Pharmacy. In March, they settled their long-running legal tiff with Novo when they agreed to drop their just-debuted compounded pill to sell Novo’s Wegovy and Ozempic in both pill and injectable versions.  (The newest Lilly weight loss med, Foundayo, is only available DTC from them and commercial insurance/cash pay only.) Hims is up to $28/share. Sherwood News

News of raises for some interesting companies came thick and fast the latter part of the week

Wearable neuromodulator developer Cala Health gained $50 million in an unlettered raise. Unusually, it had a sole funder, Trinity Capital. Cala has developed the only FDA-cleared 510(k) wearable for action hand tremor in people with essential tremor and Parkinson’s disease. The funding will be used to scale commercial distribution and product development. The kIQ device uses transcutaneous afferent patterned stimulation (TAPS), which reduces hand tremors by measuring a patient’s tremor pattern and delivering individualized nerve stimulation. Prior rounds were in 2024 ($50 million), $77 million in 2021, and a $55 million Series B in 2019. Trinity Capital release, Mobihealthnews

Joyful Health, a financial operating system for providers, raised a $17 million Series A for a total of $22 million. It is designed as a claims denial intelligence and recovery infrastructure to work within an existing revenue cycle management system and connect claims data. The round was led by CRV with participation from seed investors XYZ Venture Capital, Designer Fund, Inflect Capital (the healthcare investment arm of Vituity, the largest physician-owned partnership in the United States), and Go Global Ventures (led by Commure founder Diede van Lamoen). Providers lose over $125 billion annually in lost revenue from unpaid or denied claims.  Joyful Health blog, Yahoo Finance

Back in the popular stomping grounds of telemental health, Tava Health raised a $40 million Series C. Tava, based in Salt Lake City, markets a  behavioral health platform to providers, employers, and health plans. It also announced three new products: Symphony for providers, TavaCare for the employer market, and Tava Guide for health plans, health systems, and care coordinators. Approximately 5,000 mental health providers are a part of the Tava Health network. Investors were led by Centana Growth Partners with participation from Catalyst Investors, Blue Heron Ventures, Peterson Ventures, and Springtide Ventures. Tava has raised $73 million since 2020 with its last raise in 2024. Yahoo Finance (release), Behavioral Health Business, Mobihealthnews

And an interesting partnership

Popular actor Jeremy Renner is partnering with public safety and first responder platform RapidSOS.  NYC (!)-based RapidSOS originally specialized in the technical aspects of public 911 systems and then developed integrations to link data from over 350 million connected devices, apps, and sensors directly to 911 centers and first responders. Increasingly, these integrations are AI-powered and even incorporate drones. Mr. Renner relates very well to first responders, having his own near-death experience on New Year’s Day 2023 where his snowcat machine rolled over and crushed him, breaking 38 bones along with blunt chest trauma. He is the focus of a 30-second documentary leading up to next Wednesday’s (29 April) premiere of Behind the Emergency. He is not only helping to tell their development story from his experience, but also as a partner plus investor. Mobihealthnews 

Even famous doctors have their identity stolen: Dr. Eric Topol “authors” an apparently fake, AI-generated paper

April 23, 2026 | by

And now, it’s author names on research papers being spoofed. Eric Topol, MD, the noted physician, cardiologist, health tech maven, and director/founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, just experienced Grand Theft Auto on his identity. He was listed as the lead author of a paper entitled “Implementation Science for AI Integration in Digital Health Systems”, along with five other author/contributors. It was published in the “Journal of Digital Health Implementation” by Ellinger Publishing Media on 29 March.

Except, as Dr. Topol wrote in a post on his Substack blog, “Ground Truths“, he never wrote it.

From his post along with a screenshot of the ‘paper’ and a link:

“This is a FRAUDULENT paper, AI-generated. My name was used as an author and I had nothing to do with it, never saw it until today

The “Editors” Angelo Rossi Mori, David Mensah, and Zarnie Khadjesari and this “Journal” should be reported.”

Substack readers are often commenters, and your Editor is no exception. So she did some digging and commented on Dr. Topol’s post [Editor’s further notes in brackets]:

Dr. Topol, the link on your post [he provided a link to the publication] is not only going nowhere (to blank screen/’this site can’t be reached”), but also trying to reach the e-PubMed.co.uk site by entering it directly goes to the same screen. When I searched under Ellinger Publishing in Google and the same URL came to the top under them [see screenshot right below], the link equally does not work. The UK E-PubMed Central is now Europe PMC concentrating on UK/EU research and partners with the US NIH PubMed site on certain papers, from what I have read online.

Gemini came up with this about Ellinger: “Ellinger Publishing Media: An independent academic publisher specializing in open-access journals, specifically focusing on artificial intelligence, medicine, social sciences, and interdisciplinary research.” Again, links in the AI summary to e-pubmed.co.uk do not work. My conclusion is that this is a total spoof/hack using a URL similar to the former UK E-PubMed and this Ellinger Publishing is a fraud. I don’t know how you picked it up but it’s no longer reachable.

But, as they say on direct response TV…there’s more. I replied to my own comment, “The paper has a link [that goes to another website], Zenodo. It says clearly that it has been withdrawn from there too. Reason for removal—copyright infringement.”

https://zenodo.org/records/19337363

So what happened? Its withdrawal is as mysterious as its appearance.

At this point, we can draw only certain conclusions.

When research papers, apparently AI-generated, are being fraudulently posted with names as prominent as Dr. Eric Topol’s plus five other authors (who may or may not be real–have not checked), for content that is clearly academic-appearing (apparently a meta-analysis), anyone who publishes or has a public persona is in trouble. Big trouble. And with little defense against this happening.

But even worse, unless the Ellinger Publishing Media site itself has been hacked, this may well be a fraudulent publisher claiming open access journal status.

  • My prompt on Gemini, FWIW, indicates that Ellinger Publishing is a ‘vanity press’ for books, not a journal publisher; read for yourself here. So Gemini contradicted itself when asked the prompt differently.
  • The journal is fake as well. A search on Google on the name gives you a link to a website called Conference.Researchbib.com, but when you click on the link for the journal, it goes to the same E-PubMed UK ‘this site can’t be reached’ URL as above.

Open access journals per se are controversial enough since they exist to publish non-peer reviewed materials. For studies in progress, this is valid as a platform for further discussion and research. But it doesn’t and cannot carry the weight, the rigor of peer review. We all know that less than rigorous studies used by less than scrupulous companies have leveraged open access journals for sales/survival proof purposes.

Fraudulent open access journals on mysterious websites that spoof the names of once-authentic journal websites just take it one step further. One wonders how long has this been going on.

This Editor invites Readers to give their perspective on this matter.

Teleprescriber Zealthy–and CEO Kyle Robertson–accused of asset fraud; DOJ moves to freeze assets and put company in receivership

April 23, 2026 | by | 2 Comments

A two-year+ story about teleprescriber illegalities that isn’t getting near enough attention. The Cerebral saga is far from over. Telehealth prescriber Zealthy, founded by former Cerebral CEO Kyle Robertson, is in deepening ‘hot water’ with the Department of Justice. The DOJ filed a motion last week in Federal Court seeking an immediate asset freeze and receivership for Zealthy. This is to stop what the DOJ called a “runaway campaign of lawbreaking” by both Robertson and Zealthy, “which is actively deceiving telehealth patients, endangering their safety, and raiding their bank accounts.” The asset freeze and receivership is being requested by DOJ because Zealthy’s liquidity is marginal at best.

Zealthy sells weight loss, birth control, ED, hair loss, mental health, and other prescription medications online. The DOJ is citing them for using the names and licenses of doctors who didn’t work there to fill thousands of prescriptions without the physicians’ knowledge or clinical supervision. The amended DOJ complaint states that both Zealthy and Kyle Robertson engaged in “systemic improper and dangerous telemedical practices,” including “the routine ordering of prescriptions by foreign call-center contractors and other non-clinicians with no medical license and the systemic misuse of the name and National Provider Identifier (NPI) number of doctors to order many thousands of prescriptions for patients they did not actually treat or order a prescription for, and without their knowledge or clinical supervision—and even when they have not even been employed by Zealthy.” Reportedly, the stolen identity of one doctor was used to write 8,000 prescriptions.

Zealthy lost its medical merchant certification from credentialing organization LegitScript in 2025 after it failed to disclose the DOJ litigation. Ad platforms and payment processors dropped Zealthy, which then created shell companies to get around this. Company executives also used credit cards to buy their own subscriptions, diluting the rate of consumer credit card chargebacks to improve their transaction dispute rates, a move to make them look better for their bankers and lenders.

This is part of the ongoing Federal lawsuit that started in June 2024 around deceptive practices that violated distribution of controlled substances, the FTC Act and Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA). It mainly covered activities during the pandemic. Companies named in the original complaint were Cerebral, Zealthy (renamed Gronk Inc), Bruno Health PA, and also named executives Kyle Robertson, former Cerebral executive Alex Martelli, and executive German Echeverry. The DOJ settled the controlled substances distribution charges against Cerebral in late 2024 [TTA 8 Nov 2024] but not the charges against Mr. Robertson, who departed Cerebral in May 2022 at the start of the company’s DOJ and DEA problems. The amended complaint called out Kyle Robertson specifically: “Robertson’s lawbreaking is only becoming more brazen, and dangerous.” One wonders if Mr. Robertson is considering residences in low extradition countries. Sherwood News, FierceHealthcare, HealthExec, HIStalk

Chutes & Ladders: Vendor protest filed against VA-OIT, Teladoc stock touted as ‘best buy’, Treehub ‘founder residency’ launches, AcuityMD raises $80M to near-$1B valuation

April 23, 2026 | by

This one’s a puzzlement. This Editor was ‘tipped off’ to a bid protest filed against the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), specifically against the Office of Information Technology (OIT) Industry Day that took place on 27 March. It was found on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) website, filed on 17 April by The Gilchrist Law Firm, PA on behalf of an undisclosed vendor, under the solicitation number for the OIT Industry Day. The update from the source, Orange Slices, a government contract (GovCon) news site, stated that “the vendor” (whoever enters the info into GAO) “made a mistake in their entry to GAO and it has nothing to do with the industry day…” It has still not been fixed on the GAO website on the bid protest page.

Run out and buy TDOC stock! That’s the advice from “Insider Monkey” publishing on Yahoo Finance. In fact the Monkey rates Teladoc “among the best medical AI stocks to buy now”. The article is an overview of the Pineal Capital Management call for $200 million in share buybacks, breaking up the Integrated Care and BetterHelp businesses, and other shareholder friendly cash-generating ‘reforms’ [TTA 3 April]. Teladoc’s 2026 revenue forecast under CEO Chuck DaVita is essentially flat–$2.47 to $2.59 billion versus 2025’s $2.53 billion. This Editor noted a small rise in the stock price in the past month of about 70 cents. There may be some drama around the Q1 earnings report which will be issued next Wednesday (29 April). 

The interestingly named Treehub launches out of Stanford University. It’s designed to bridge the gap between the extreme early stage of a developing healthcare idea or technology, usually out of an academic lab, to where the formed company is fundable. It seems to be a combination of a healthcare tech scout, a venture studio with hands-on support, and an incubator community, with the capital of a venture fund. The Los Altos-based residency program is funded via the AI Health Fund and has some heavyweight names attached to it: Mary Minno, herself a former venture-backed founder now at Google, a brace of Stanford professors, Derek Minno of Point Capital, and two Wojcickis: Anne Wojcicki, founder of 23andMe, as Operating Partner and her mother, Esther Wojcicki, as a Founding Advisor. One wonders how Anne Wojcicki is faring in rebuilding 23andMe’s business and the 23andMe Research Institute; certainly they haven’t been shy about new products such as add-ins of African genetic groups, reconstructing ancestors’ DNA, and genetic predictors for GLP-1 effectiveness (press release list). Treehub release, Mobihealthnews interview with Ms. Minno and Esther Wojcicki, ‘the godmother of Silicon Valley’.

Raises this week so far have been slim. Medical commercial intelligence platform AcuityMD announced a raise of $80 million in a Series C led by existing investor StepStone Group, with additional participation from Benchmark, Redpoint Ventures, ICONIQ, and Atreides Management. Previous investment was $76 million. The company’s valuation is nearing the $1 billion mark at $955 million. AcuityMD’s platform helps medtech companies towards commercial insights that are typically scattered across claims databases, FDA filings, government records, and market signals. The fresh funding will be used to accelerate platform capabilities via AI. The company claims as customers 16 of the top 20 medtech companies and helping to identify $34 billion in pipeline. Release, Mobihealthnews

29th ISfTeH International Conference announced for 11-13 November in Germany–submit your proposal now!

April 22, 2026 | by

Save the dates, be a speaker, and book the tickets! One of the oldest international organizations in digital health, ISfTeH (the International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth) is meeting again for the 29th year. This year’s host will be member organization Deggendorf Institute of Technology (DIT) at their European Campus Rottal-Inn (ECRI). The ISfTeH meeting will be in conjunction with DIT’s annual DigiHealthDay (DHD) conference in Pfarrkirchen, Germany, 11-13 November.

The DHD Conference is a global forum for education, research, innovation, and networking in digital health, presented under the theme “Global Digital Health – today, tomorrow, and beyond.” The annual DHD conference is a culmination of DIT’s series of onsite and online events throughout the year, all centered on the question “How are digital technologies transforming health and care around the world?” 

The ISfTeH track at the event invites proposal submissions from members. If you are interested in presenting your work on current research or practical experience, submit it at https://forms.gle/hMH9NtjHUgDhK68S6 by Monday 4 May 2026. Questions? Email info@isfteh.org.

Perspectives: What Healthcare Can Learn from Formula One About AI

April 21, 2026 | by

TTA has an open invitation to industry leaders to contribute to our Perspectives non-promotional opinion and thought leadership area. We welcome back Iris Telehealth for today’s topic on how telehealth and clinical dashboards should be like modern Formula 1 race cars’–displaying the relevant information for that patient visit and increasing clinician presence versus being overwhelmed by data and documentation load. The author, David Bartley, is Iris Telehealth’s Chief Solutions Officer, with over 20 years of experience leading healthcare product strategy across payers, providers, and population health organizations including MedeAnalytics, Cotivi (formerly Verisk Health), eviCore, Healthways and Humana.

Behavioral health organizations are already absorbing a level of administrative pressure that has nothing to do with clinical care. I’ve spoken with CEOs of rural mental health clinics who are deciding between keeping a clinician on staff and sustaining the administrative infrastructure required to stay compliant.

One told me he had seven people on staff doing nothing but collecting state reporting data — compliance work that consumed payroll he would rather put toward clinical capacity. That tradeoff is exactly what funding pressure forces, and it is where AI can do something genuinely useful: absorbing the administrative work so that the next available dollar goes toward a clinician, not a spreadsheet.

What’s keeping organizations from achieving this reality with AI? Well, most of the industry is measuring AI’s value primarily through operational metrics, like how many more patients a provider can see, how fast documentation gets processed, or how lean an operation can run. Those are important operational metrics — but on their own, they don’t tell us whether care actually improved.

The organizations that figure out how to use AI to deepen the quality of each encounter, rather than multiply the number of them, will move care forward.

Leading health systems are already building toward it. At Mayo Clinic, for example, investments in integrated, AI-enabled platforms are helping bring together multimodal clinical data and advanced analytics in ways that surface the most relevant insights at the moment of care. It’s a signal that the industry is moving beyond AI as an efficiency tool and toward AI as a clinical intelligence layer.

Surfacing what matters, exactly when it matters

When I think about what AI should look like inside a clinical encounter, I keep coming back to Formula One. A driver at race speed does not receive every data point the car is generating. They get tire temps, oil pressure, wind shear — the six or seven variables that matter most in that exact moment, surfaced at eye level in what is known as a heads-up display, so they can keep their focus on the track.

A telehealth dashboard should work the same way. Data like relevant patient history, active risk factors and behavioral signals worth exploring, all fixed at the top of the screen. Something buried in a clinical note from two years ago that has not been relevant for months could resurface the moment the conversation makes it useful again.  The goal of AI in behavioral health should not be to simply accelerate care delivery but to increase the signal-to-noise ratio inside each clinical moment.

The provider never has to look away from the patient to find it, and the patient never loses the sense that the person on the other side of the screen is fully present. In behavioral health especially, where the therapeutic relationship is the mechanism of care, the quality of that connection often determines whether treatment actually works.

The value of presence

A JAMA Network study published in October 2025, with data collected in 2024, on ambient AI scribes found that documentation load directly erodes the attention providers can bring to each encounter. Clearing that load only to fill the time with more appointments trades one problem for another.

Providers need time between encounters to process what they heard, notice what did not get said and carry genuine context into the next conversation. That kind of reflection is where clinical judgment actually develops and is exactly what gets squeezed out when efficiency becomes the primary design constraint.

Patients who feel that a provider is fully present are more likely to disclose accurately, follow through on treatment, and stay engaged over time. AI designed around that outcome becomes a powerful tool that actually earns its place in the workflow.

Formula One teams do not build heads-up displays to increase the number of races a driver competes in. They build them to make each race winnable. The industry would do well to borrow that distinction.