Samwise Healthcare IT Newsletter
Tuesday, September 15, 2026
Conifer Health Solutions to Lay Off 1,037 Workers as CommonSpirit Contract Ends, AI Cited
Conifer Health Solutions, a revenue cycle management subsidiary of Tenet Healthcare, will lay off 1,037 primarily remote employees by November 2, 2026, per a Texas WARN notice. The reductions follow CommonSpirit Health’s decision to exit its Conifer service contract on October 30 after paying Tenet approximately $1.9 billion over three years plus $540 million to unwind a roughly 24 percent equity stake. Tenet CEO Dr. Saum Sutaria cited AI adoption and offshoring as tools to reduce costs at Conifer going forward. Founded in 2008, Conifer serves more than 600 clients and has counted CommonSpirit as a customer since 2012.
Sources: Healthcare Dive
Oracle Health Launches Clinical AI Agent for Nurses, Enabling Voice-Driven EHR Chart Navigation
Oracle Health has launched its Clinical AI Agent for nurses across U.S. health systems, bringing voice-enabled chart navigation to the Foundation EHR. Nurses can use voice commands to query patient charts and generate nursing summaries without leaving their workflow. Seema Verma, Oracle Health executive vice president and general manager, said the tool targets the manual, repetitive work that pulls nurses away from direct patient care. BayCare CIO Lynnette Clinton reported measurable charting time savings. Athenahealth reported parallel momentum: more than 170,000 clinicians now use its AI tools, with same-day chart completion up 30 percent and an average of six fewer minutes per patient encounter.
Sources: Healthcare Dive
Behavioral Health AI Shifts from Episodic Screening to Continuous Risk Monitoring, Study Shows
Behavioral health AI is moving beyond one-time PHQ-9 and GAD-7 screenings toward continuous, longitudinal risk monitoring, according to NeuroFlow CEO Chris Molaro. A study of 13,000 Independence Blue Cross members using NeuroFlow’s platform found a 68 percent increase in the likelihood of receiving outpatient behavioral health services, a 33 percent reduction in emergency department visits, and $27.63 lower cost per member per month. Molaro noted a clinical imperative: heart failure patients with depression are three times less likely to adhere to treatment regimens. Seventy-nine percent of antidepressant prescriptions currently originate from primary care rather than specialists.
Sources: Healthcare IT News
ONC Launches Cartos FHIR Terminology Service; Nine Teams Advance to EHIgnite Phase 2
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT launched Cartos, a publicly accessible FHIR-enabled terminology service supporting ONC regulatory compliance. The September 2026 ONC update also reveals nine teams advancing to Phase 2 of the EHIgnite challenge, which uses advanced AI to transform electronic health information exports into actionable patient data for clinicians and patients. In a structural shift, HHS reversed its 2024 agency reorganization in March 2026, restoring ONC’s standalone status. The KidneyX EMPOWER: Living Link Prize 2026 announced its awardees, recognizing innovations in kidney disease care technology. The combined announcements signal ONC’s expanding role in shaping AI-enabled health data infrastructure.
Sources: Health IT Answers
Healthcare IT AI Roundup: OpenMatter Launches Privacy-Preserving ML Engine; Verily and NVIDIA Unveil Forecast 1.0
Three notable AI developments mark this week’s Healthcare IT News roundup. OpenMatter Network launched MatterML V2, a privacy-preserving multi-party computing engine requiring no cryptographic expertise, alongside MatterSDK with threshold cryptography and MatterVault for secure data collaboration across organizational boundaries. CEO Renee Davis and CTO Ada Anderson said the platform enables AI model training across siloed datasets without exposing raw information. Trusted Health and Mayo Clinic CareCast announced a partnership using demand forecasting to match nurse staffing with patient acuity. NVIDIA and Verily jointly unveiled Forecast 1.0, a precision health platform combining genomic data, wearables, and clinical records to power population health predictions.
Sources: Healthcare IT News
CHIME Cybersecurity Tactical Defense Summit Returns October 6 with Focus on 30/60/90-Day Action Plans
CHIME and Answers Media Network are hosting their second annual Cybersecurity Tactical Defense Summit on October 6, 2026, from 1:00 to 4:30 PM ET. The virtual event is designed to equip healthcare IT security leaders with concrete 30-, 60-, and 90-day action plans rather than theoretical frameworks. The program draws on recent high-profile incidents: Ascension Health’s 136-hospital network remained offline for six weeks, Change Healthcare exposed 100 million patient records, Yale New Haven reached an $18 million settlement, and cancer patients were turned away at Brockton Hospital. Attendees earn three to four CHIME continuing education units upon completion.
Sources: Health IT Answers
Healthcare AI Accelerates Individual Tasks but Fails to Close Complete Administrative Workflows, Analysis Finds
Healthcare AI is speeding up individual administrative steps without resolving the end-to-end workflows that span systems and stakeholders, argues Ramkumar Pichandi, CEO of Rytsense Technologies. An eligibility check may complete while the underlying account remains unresolved; a prior authorization submission may go through while supporting documentation sits unsent at another point in the process. Pichandi calls this moving the problem rather than solving it. With CMS’s Interoperability and Prior Authorization Final Rule requiring payer APIs by 2027, the pressure to close complete administrative loops is becoming regulatory as well as operational. He urges health IT teams to track workflow completion, not task completion.
Sources: Health IT Answers
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Curated by JD · samwise.agency