Samwise Healthcare IT Newsletter
Monday, September 7, 2026
House subcommittee subpoenas Oracle executives as VA EHR cost reaches $27 billion
The House Armed Services subcommittee voted 19-0 to subpoena Oracle founder Larry Ellison and chief executive officer Mike Sicilia after the company declined a voluntary invitation to testify about the troubled Department of Veterans Affairs electronic health record modernization project. Costs for the initiative have ballooned from an original $10 billion estimate to $27 billion, while deployment has reached only 17 of 170 VA medical centers. Lawmakers have grown increasingly frustrated with delays, performance problems, and the cost spiral as veterans wait for a system that was expected to unify care records across the country's largest integrated health system.
Sources: Healthcare Dive
ChatGPT for Healthcare integrates with Epic EHR, expanding AI access to patient records
OpenAI has connected ChatGPT for Healthcare to Epic's electronic health record, giving clinicians read-only access to patient records including clinical notes, labs, medications, and specialist consultations. The integration, protected by a HIPAA business associate agreement, draws from Epic's network covering roughly 325 million patients. Launch partners include UCSF, HCA Healthcare, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, AdventHealth, Boston Children's Hospital, and Stanford Medicine. OpenAI also released a Healthcare Public Data connector linking ChatGPT to resources including ClinicalTrials.gov, CMS data, RxNorm, DailyMed, and PubMed, enabling clinicians to search publicly available clinical and regulatory information alongside patient records.
Sources: Fierce Healthcare
QGenda scheduling feature exposed clinician shifts and contact information at 50 health systems
A security research report has found that a scheduling software feature at QGenda allowed anyone on the internet to view clinician schedules without logging in, exposing cell phone numbers and months of shift data at nearly 50 health systems. The "QuickLinks" feature generated publicly accessible URLs that did not require authentication. Affected organizations include Penn Medicine, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Johns Hopkins Medicine, and UCSF. No patient data was compromised. Security researchers warned the exposure creates risks for workplace violence and targeted harassment of physicians. QGenda has not publicly commented on the findings.
Sources: Becker's Hospital Review
AMA names Jennifer Goldsack to lead new Center for Digital Health and Artificial Intelligence
The American Medical Association has named Jennifer Goldsack as the inaugural leader of a new Center for Digital Health and Artificial Intelligence, tasking her with developing physician-centered AI policy and building relationships with regulators and technology companies. Goldsack, who previously founded and led the Digital Medicine Society, joins the AMA as senior vice president. The center's mission is to position physicians as active shapers of how artificial intelligence is developed and deployed in medicine, rather than passive recipients of technology developed elsewhere. The AMA said the center will engage policymakers and industry on standards, accountability, and clinical validation of AI tools.
Sources: Becker's Hospital Review
Mount Sinai, Denver Health join AI trust coalition for responsible clinical AI governance
Mount Sinai Health System and Denver Health have joined a healthcare AI trust coalition formed to advance responsible governance of artificial intelligence in clinical settings, Becker's Hospital Review reported September 3. The coalition brings together health systems seeking shared standards for evaluating, deploying, and monitoring AI tools in care delivery environments. Both organizations join existing coalition members in the effort to develop collective accountability frameworks for health AI. The report reviewed for this edition did not include additional details on the coalition's governance structure, founding membership, or specific technical commitments made by joining organizations.
Sources: Becker's Hospital Review
Malaysia commits $250 million to national healthcare digitalization drive with 2028 target
Malaysia has committed RM1 billion, equivalent to approximately $250 million, to accelerate the digitalization of its national healthcare system, with a goal of achieving full digitalization by 2028, an advance of seventeen years over the original 2045 target. An additional RM350 million is earmarked specifically for internet connectivity and electronic medical record deployment. A cloud-based clinical management system is being piloted across 150 government hospitals and 2,488 public healthcare facilities. The investment is intended to standardize electronic medical records and improve healthcare access across Malaysia's network of public facilities, according to Health IT News Asia.
Sources: Healthcare IT News
Healthcare ransomware attacks climb 14 percent in first half of 2026, report finds
Ransomware attacks on healthcare organizations totaled 410 in the first half of 2026, a 14 percent increase over the 360 attacks recorded in the second half of 2025, according to a new report. Direct care providers absorbed 247 of those attacks, a 3 percent increase, while healthcare businesses saw a 35 percent jump to 163 incidents. Median ransom demands reached $310,000 for direct providers and $300,000 for healthcare businesses. The ransomware strains Qilin and The Gentlemen were the most active during the period. Researchers found no confirmed ransom payments by victim organizations in the first half of the year.
Sources: Becker's Hospital Review
DEA submits permanent telehealth controlled substance prescribing rule for federal review
The Drug Enforcement Administration submitted its Special Registration telemedicine rule to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on August 25, advancing the agency toward a permanent framework that would allow clinicians to prescribe controlled substances via audio-video telemedicine without a prior in-person visit. More than 7 million remote controlled substance prescriptions were written in 2024 under temporary pandemic flexibilities, which are set to expire December 31, 2026. The American Telemedicine Association said it is actively engaging with the Office of Management and Budget to advance the rule before the flexibilities lapse and patients lose access to remote prescribing.
Sources: Healthcare IT News
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