Samwise Healthcare IT Newsletter
Saturday, September 26, 2026
Google Cybersecurity Arm Finds Critical Hospital Exposures
Google’s cybersecurity subsidiary Wiz, working with CISA and using DeepMind’s Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber model, uncovered critical security exposures at two unnamed hospitals through its Scan for Good program. At a public hospital, missing access controls exposed staff contact information and allowed anyone to take over a mobile patient alert channel. At a private hospital, an unsecured upload portal on the appointment-booking site exposed patient identifiers, clinical records, consent signatures, and provided server-level access. Both vulnerabilities were fixed before disclosure. The program also found exposures at a national archive, a municipal data system, and a public rail operator.
Sources: Becker’s Hospital Review
Blue Cross Study: Hospital AI Coding Tools Added $942M in Costs
A Blue Cross Blue Shield Association white paper released Friday estimates hospital AI coding tools added approximately $942 million to Blue Cross and Blue Shield plan payments over two years, from early 2023 to late 2025. The share of inpatient claims billed at higher-complexity levels rose from roughly 37 to 40 percent during that period. About 70 percent of the added cost came from secondary diagnoses derived from a single lab value moving a claim to a higher-paying tier. Hospitals dispute the findings, arguing AI tools improve coding accuracy and reduce claim denials. The white paper has not been peer reviewed.
Sources: Technology.org
UNC Health System Erases $45M Loss With Epic Rollout
UNC Health Appalachian, a three-hospital system in Boone, North Carolina, has recorded its first positive operating margin in approximately a decade after implementing Epic EHR in November 2024, reversing a projected $45 million operating loss. The system joined UNC Health’s information technology infrastructure as its 17th hospital through a 2022 affiliation. CEO Nathan Nipper credited the EHR with providing new visibility into clinical and operational data, which he said drove improvements in revenue cycle management and patient flow. The system now faces an estimated $18 million annual risk from pending federal funding cuts.
Sources: Becker’s Hospital Review
FDA Releases Draft Guidance for Robotically Assisted Surgical Devices
The Food and Drug Administration has released draft guidance establishing new premarket submission requirements for robotically assisted surgical devices. The guidance covers testing for accuracy and reliability, cumulative delay from surgeon input through instrument motion to visual feedback, motion scaling, tremor reduction, and responses to system failures. Manufacturers incorporating AI must also test how the system behaves when the AI component makes an error. Cybersecurity assessments must address the entire connected system, including hospital networks and cloud components. A public comment period of sixty days will follow the guidance’s release.
Sources: MobiHealthNews
What It Takes for an AI Startup to Survive in the Epic/Microsoft Era
Healthcare AI startups face a tougher survival landscape as Epic ends its third-party codevelopment program and launches its own ambient documentation tools, panelists said at the MGB World Medical Innovation Forum. Ada Glover, chief product officer of Zus Health, said defensibility lies in owning capabilities that platforms cannot absorb and in avoiding single-EHR dependence. Terrence Chen, CEO of United Imaging Intelligence America, said companies that generate proprietary clinical data hold a structural edge. Eric Podradchik of Mass General Brigham said integration with a platform vendor’s core roadmap has become a prerequisite for scaling a healthcare AI business.
Sources: Becker’s Hospital Review
How UChicago Medicine Shifted Staff to More Difficult Revenue Cycle Work
UChicago Medicine has used Epic-integrated automation to shift revenue cycle staff from routine insurance verification and prior authorization to more complex work, without reducing headcount, according to Matthew Kennedy, the health system’s director of patient access and financial clearance. Kennedy spoke at Becker’s 11th Annual Health IT and Digital Health and RCM Conference. Automation now clears approximately 95 percent of certain cases twenty-eight days before service, twelve days earlier than before. Staff are redirected to complex surgical cases, labor planning, and payer follow-up. Kennedy cautioned that the system requires ongoing oversight: “AI is not a ‘set it and forget it’ thing.”
Sources: Becker’s Hospital Review
Health Systems Can’t Integrate Their Way Out of This IT Problem
Three health IT leaders at Atlantic Health, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, and MetroHealth say fragmented architecture is a governance problem that technology alone cannot solve. Atlantic Health Chief Information Officer Sunil Dadlani said systems are commonly built “one problem at a time,” with EHR, imaging, and scheduling tools selected by different groups. “You can’t integrate your way out of an architecture problem after the fact,” he said. Lauchland Roberts of Methodist Le Bonheur said IT typically becomes an afterthought after operational decisions are made. MetroHealth Chief Nursing Informatics Officer Jill Evans described a smart room initiative connecting virtual nursing, AI monitoring, and EHR workflows.
Sources: Becker’s Hospital Review
How Digital Tools Can Help Healthcare Address Climate Change
Electronic health records need environmental data — including air quality and heat — to help clinicians respond to climate-related illness, argues Dr. Chethan Sarabu, director of clinical innovation at Cornell Tech’s Health Tech Hub. Sarabu, chair-elect of the AMIA Climate Health Informatics Working Group, says clinicians during California’s overlapping wildfire season and COVID-19 surge had no way to view air quality data in the EHR while treating asthma patients. He describes how EHRs could nudge clinicians toward lower-carbon treatment choices, such as dry powder inhalers over metered-dose inhalers, and notes that healthcare costs from climate events are excluded from standard disaster cost tallies.
Sources: MobiHealthNews
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