Samwise Healthcare IT Newsletter
Friday, August 28, 2026
Boston Scientific Cyberattack Disrupts Cardiac Device Ordering and Shipping
Boston Scientific confirmed that a cyberattack identified August 25 disrupted its ordering and shipping systems for cardiac devices, including pacemakers and coronary stents, affecting hospital customers globally. The company disclosed the breach in a regulatory filing but has not attributed the attack or confirmed whether data was accessed. Shares fell approximately five percent following the announcement. Analyst firm Piper Sandler estimated restoration of normal operations within approximately three weeks. The disruption adds to an accelerating wave of healthcare supply chain cyberattacks, raising concerns about device availability at hospitals dependent on Boston Scientific’s cardiac and interventional cardiology product lines.
Sources: Healthcare Dive
National Nurses United Organizes Nationwide Protests Against Palantir in Hospitals
National Nurses United, the largest nursing union in the United States with more than 225,000 registered nurse members, organized demonstrations in eight cities on August 27, demanding hospitals immediately cut ties with Palantir Technologies. The union objects to HCA Healthcare’s use of Timpani, a Palantir-powered automated staffing platform nurses say substitutes software for clinical judgment, and to MaineHealth’s use of Palantir analytics without adequate data safeguard disclosure. Protesters also cited court filings showing an ICE Medicaid dataset was shared with Palantir personnel, connecting the company’s hospital work to immigration surveillance and raising data governance concerns.
Sources: Healthcare IT News
Survey: 74 Percent of Americans Want Providers to Disclose AI Use in Their Care
A Pew Research Center survey of 3,488 U.S. adults conducted June 22 through 28 finds that 74 percent consider it extremely or very important that healthcare providers disclose when artificial intelligence is used in their care. The survey, published August 27, found 63 percent of respondents want more say in AI-related care decisions, while 46 percent are unsure whether AI is already influencing their treatment. Fifty-three percent say they have little or no control over how AI tools affect their care. The results underscore growing public demand for transparency as AI-assisted clinical tools spread across hospitals and health systems.
Sources: Healthcare Dive
CMS Hosts Launch Event for ACCESS Medicare Chronic Care Digital Health Pilot
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is hosting a launch event for the ACCESS program, a ten-year Medicare pilot that creates a reimbursement pathway for remote patient monitoring and digital chronic care management tools. ACCESS — Advancing Chronic Care with Effective Scalable Solutions — launched July 5 and covers six conditions: hypertension, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, musculoskeletal pain, depression, and anxiety. More than 150 companies have been approved to participate. The program provides health technology companies a federal reimbursement mechanism for qualifying digital health tools used in ongoing chronic disease management.
Ardent Health Reports One Million Encounters and 87 Percent Voluntary Adoption of Ambient AI
Ardent Health’s enterprise ambient AI deployment has surpassed one million patient encounters since its rollout began last September, achieving a voluntary utilization rate of 87 percent among more than 650 clinicians and a greater-than-three-times return on investment. Chief Medical Information Officer Dr. Brad Hoyt reports clinicians save more than three hours per week on documentation and the health system has seen a 20 percent increase in hierarchical condition categories documented per visit — attributed to more complete real-time capture, not AI-generated codes. Hoyt says voluntary adoption and after-hours charting reduction are more meaningful ambient AI metrics than financial ROI.
Sources: Healthcare IT News
Suki Launches Verbatim AI Dictation Tool with Native Epic and Meditech Integration
Suki has launched a verbatim dictation tool that transcribes physician speech word-for-word into clinical notes, integrating natively into Epic and Meditech EHR platforms. Unlike Suki’s flagship ambient scribe, which summarizes patient-provider conversations into notes, Suki Dictation preserves exact spoken language — useful when clinicians need precision for complex surgical procedures or medical codes. The tool uses automatic speech recognition that learns a user’s vocabulary over time. Health technology companies can also embed it directly into their own products. Suki says providers can use the dictation tool alongside or as an alternative to its ambient clinical documentation scribe.
Sources: Healthcare Dive
Hacking Group DireWolf Claims 253GB Stolen from National Kidney Registry
A hacking group called DireWolf claims to have stolen 253 gigabytes of data from the National Kidney Registry, a Connecticut-based nonprofit that coordinates living donor organ transplants across the United States. The stolen data reportedly includes donor identities, recipient records, and transplant matching information. The registry confirmed a cybersecurity incident and is working with federal law enforcement. Security researchers warn that exposure of transplant matching data could affect the privacy and, in worst cases, the safety of patients awaiting life-critical organ transplants if individuals decline to participate in donor networks due to privacy concerns.
Sources: GovInfoSecurity
ShinyHunters Publishes 7.1 Million Records Stolen from Baxter International
The ShinyHunters hacker collective has published 7.1 million records reportedly stolen from Baxter International, including data from the medical device company’s Salesforce customer relationship management platform. The group said it released the data after ransom negotiations with Baxter failed. Baxter said the incident has not affected its manufacturing operations or patient safety systems. ShinyHunters has previously claimed breaches at dozens of major organizations, including DentaQuest. The leak raises concerns about the security of healthcare vendor CRM systems, which can contain contact information, service agreements, and operational details for hospital customers worldwide.
Sources: GovInfoSecurity
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Curated by JD · samwise.agency