Samwise Healthcare IT Newsletter
Tuesday, September 29, 2026
OpenEvidence raises $250M at $15B valuation
OpenEvidence, an artificial intelligence clinical decision tool, has raised $250 million in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz and Byers Capital, valuing the company at $15 billion. The financing is one of the largest individual rounds in healthcare AI this year, underscoring rapid capital formation in the clinical AI sector. The $15 billion valuation reflects strong investor conviction that AI will become central to how physicians access and synthesize clinical information. As health systems increasingly seek scalable decision-support solutions, rounds of this size signal the sector is maturing from early experimentation into enterprise-ready deployment at scale.
Sources: Becker’s Hospital Review
Optum Health names CEO for AI and product innovation
Optum Health has named Wes Donohoe as its chief executive for AI and product innovation, the company confirmed to Becker’s Hospital Review on September 28. The newly defined role places artificial intelligence at the center of Optum’s strategic and product direction. As one of the nation’s largest health services companies, Optum’s move reflects a broader industry shift: major payers and providers are formalizing AI governance at the C-suite level. Donohoe’s appointment signals growing demand for leaders who can bridge clinical operations, technology, and AI strategy within complex, large-scale health organizations.
Sources: Becker’s Hospital Review
Insurers say AI could add billions in health costs. Billing companies disagree.
Artificial intelligence is inflating insurance costs, according to a new analysis by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association — but the billing companies building these tools push back. The BCBSA found that AI-backed billing software added approximately $942 million in costs over two years without a corresponding increase in actual treatment, suggesting the tools may be driving up claims. Vendors such as Codametrix and Solventum counter that AI is capturing legitimate but previously undocumented care. PwC separately projects a 9% rise in insurer medical costs from AI billing tools. The disagreement highlights regulatory and transparency gaps in an unresolved debate.
Sources: Healthcare Dive
What it will take for AI to deliver better clinical decisions
Electronic health records solved data storage but left physicians without an efficient way to synthesize information into decisions, says Matt Cybulsky, managing director of healthcare at Catalant. In a Q&A with Healthcare IT News, Cybulsky argues that AI’s greatest clinical contribution will come from surfacing overlooked insights buried in the EHR — not just summarizing what is already there. He cautions that gains will be incremental rather than transformational, and that trustworthiness remains the leading adoption barrier among clinicians. A 2026 Journal of Medical Internet Research review found AI decision-support tools produced measurable improvements in diagnostic accuracy and risk stratification across specialties.
Sources: Healthcare IT News
Who monitors the guardrails? Healthcare needs an independent AI safety board
As ChatGPT-Epic integration brings AI directly into clinical settings, health systems lack an independent body to verify that the tools actually work safely over time, argues Dr. Sahar Hashmi, CEO of Magna GenAI Consulting. Writing in Becker’s Hospital Review, Hashmi identifies three structural governance gaps: vendors self-attest their own guardrails, validation is fragmented across individual health systems, and models update faster than institutions can re-verify them. She proposes an independent healthcare AI safety board to evaluate tools before deployment, monitor performance continuously after go-live, and require cross-institution incident reporting. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey separately urged legislators this month to mandate independent third-party AI evaluations.
Sources: Becker’s Hospital Review
Q&A: Designing AI workflows for meaningful impact
Dr. Brad Cohn, regional medical director of perioperative management at The Permanente Medical Group, built an AI agent prototype at Epic’s second Agent Factory Build-a-Thon to reduce surgical cancellations. The system, called Surgio, uses specialized AI agents to evaluate surgical readiness factors — including medication concerns and changes in clinical status — before an orchestration agent combines findings into a prioritized summary for care teams. Developed using Epic’s no-code environment, Surgio demonstrates that successful clinical AI depends less on programming skill than on deep clinical workflow knowledge. Cohn’s team plans to validate the prototype in real-world settings under a responsible AI framework.
Sources: Healthcare IT News
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Curated by JD · samwise.agency