Samwise Healthcare IT Newsletter
Saturday, September 12, 2026
ARPA-H Invests $62.7M to Build Autonomous AI Agent for Cardiovascular Care
ARPA-H launched its ADVOCATE initiative with $62.7 million in funding to build an FDA-authorized, autonomous AI agent designed to treat patients with cardiovascular disease. The four-year program awarded contracts to six teams including Tempus AI, Atman Health, and UpDoc, with clinical deployment partners including Kaiser Permanente, Duke Health, and Stanford Medicine. The initiative targets heart failure and related cardiovascular conditions, with an explicit FDA collaboration pathway built into the program design. ARPA-H described the goal as developing agentic AI that can independently manage clinical decisions within a defined scope, operating under physician oversight.
Sources: Healthcare Dive
Veradigm Discloses Ransomware Breach via Third-Party Vendor
Veradigm disclosed via an SEC filing that a cyberattack carried out by The Gentlemen ransomware group compromised patient credentials through a third-party vendor. The health data and technology company said attackers gained entry through the vendor rather than Veradigm’s own infrastructure, with patient data exposed as a result of the third-party access. The breach underscores persistent supply chain vulnerabilities in healthcare technology, where a single compromised third-party vendor can expose patient data held across multiple covered entities and client organizations. The disclosure was made via an SEC cybersecurity incident report required for material breaches.
Sources: Healthcare IT News
VA Awards Amwell Letter of Intent for Veterans Virtual Care Platform
The Department of Veterans Affairs issued a letter of intent to Amwell to deploy its connected care platform for virtual care services to veterans. The announcement extends VA’s significant investment in telehealth infrastructure, with 2.9 million veterans having used VA telehealth services during fiscal year 2025. Amwell’s platform enables virtual visits, remote patient monitoring, and care coordination across VA’s expansive network. The partnership reflects the VA’s continued prioritization of digital health access for veterans, particularly those in rural or underserved areas where in-person care can be difficult to reach. The agreement marks a major federal telehealth contract award for Amwell.
Sources: Healthcare IT News
Quest Diagnostics Brings 50-Biomarker Lab Panel to Apple Health App
Quest Diagnostics will integrate a 50-biomarker laboratory test panel directly into Apple Health, allowing users to order and receive lab results through the iPhone Health app. The panel, priced at $119, covers key biomarkers for cardiometabolic health and organ function. Orders can be placed at approximately 2,000 Quest locations nationwide, with results flowing automatically into the Health app. Quest collaborates with third-party providers to review and approve all test orders, with clinical consultation available at no additional charge. The integration expands direct consumer access to laboratory diagnostics via Apple’s growing health data ecosystem, simplifying the ordering and results workflow for patients seeking preventive health insights.
Sources: Fierce Healthcare
Cleveland Clinic Tests AI-Powered Hospital Operations with Startup Luminai
Cleveland Clinic is piloting AI automation of hospital operations with startup Luminai, which raised $38 million in Series B funding. The partnership focuses on automating external referral processing, the high-volume administrative workflow of receiving, routing, and processing patient referrals from outside providers. Luminai’s platform combines AI with a configurable workflow engine and keeps a human in the loop for exceptions and escalations. The Cleveland Clinic deployment tests whether AI can reliably manage complex operational workflows at scale in a major academic health system. If successful, the model could expand to other administrative functions, reshaping how large hospitals manage non-clinical operations.
Sources: Fierce Healthcare
Suki Launches Research Collaborative to Build Evidence for Ambient AI Documentation
Suki, the ambient clinical documentation company, launched the Suki Research Collaborative, an industry-wide initiative to gather evidence on the effectiveness of AI-powered ambient documentation tools in clinical settings. The SRC brings together health systems and researchers to build a rigorous evidence base for ambient documentation technology, which automatically generates clinical notes from patient-provider conversations. As ambient AI adoption accelerates across health systems, the SRC aims to fill a critical gap: systematic research demonstrating measurable clinical outcomes, provider experience improvements, and workflow efficiency gains from ambient documentation, giving health system leaders the data needed to justify and scale deployments.
Sources: Fierce Healthcare
Half of U.S. Hospitals Still Not Compliant with Price Transparency Rules
More than half of U.S. hospitals remain non-compliant with federal price transparency rules more than five years after the requirement took effect, according to PatientRightsAdvocate.org’s eighth annual scorecard. The advocacy group analyzed 2,000 hospitals and found that approximately 49 percent were fully compliant, the highest rate since tracking began in 2021, driven by CMS stepping up enforcement and fining 28 facilities. Still, more than 1,000 hospitals are posting incomplete or improperly formatted pricing files. Among compliant hospitals, only 360 published actual dollar-and-cent prices rather than opaque payment algorithms, limiting patients’ ability to meaningfully compare costs across providers.
Sources: Healthcare Dive
Health Systems Build Permanent Business Case for Virtual Care Beyond Reimbursement
Health systems are building a permanent business case for virtual care that extends well beyond reimbursement rates, according to healthcare leaders cited in a new analysis. Access to care for patients in underserved areas, physical space savings for facilities, clinician productivity gains, and strong patient demand are each driving the expansion of telehealth programs even as payment policy for virtual services remains uncertain. Organizations with mature telehealth programs are finding sustainable value across multiple dimensions, shifting the conversation from will we get paid to how do we scale this responsibly, embedding virtual care into standard care delivery models.
Sources: Healthcare IT News
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