Samwise Healthcare IT Newsletter
Monday, October 12, 2026
Oracle Health Cerner Breach Now Tied to Almost 20 Million People
The scale of a 2025 breach of Oracle Health’s legacy Cerner servers is becoming clearer, with almost 20 million individuals now thought to be affected, HIPAA Journal reported Thursday. Citing Bloomberg, the outlet said the Texas Attorney General released information pointing to that total, though the figure has not been independently verified. State filings confirm 2,992,244 affected individuals in Texas, 1,978,661 in Oregon, 283,903 in South Carolina and 69,238 in Washington. An unauthorized individual first accessed two legacy Cerner servers not yet migrated to Oracle Cloud as early as January 22, 2025. Stolen data included names, Social Security numbers, diagnoses, medications, test results and medical images.
Sources: HIPAA Journal
Clearwater Report Finds 91% of Healthcare Organizations Cannot Verify All Their AI
Most healthcare organizations have AI governance frameworks but lack the technical means to enforce them, according to a Clearwater report released Thursday and covered by Healthcare IT News. The study of 105 organizations found 91% cannot verify all of the AI running in their environments, and only 14.3% fully validate their vendors’ AI controls. Forty-two percent named sensitive data leaking through AI tools as their greatest AI-related concern, while 30.8% said employees use unapproved AI tools without oversight. Eighty percent spend less than 5% of their security budgets on AI security. Separately, the EHR Association urged stakeholders to treat security as a core element of patient safety.
Sources: Healthcare IT News
Anthropic Opens Expanded Cyber Verification Program to Regional Hospitals
Anthropic has expanded its Cyber Verification Program, which gives qualifying security professionals access to advanced cybersecurity capabilities in its Claude models, Healthcare IT News reported Thursday. The redesigned program has three tiers. Defense Access covers vulnerability assessment, incident response and malware reverse-engineering for defenders of critical infrastructure, “such as regional hospitals or municipal utilities.” Red Team Access permits authorized penetration testing, while Specialized Access serves a limited set of verified organizations, with the U.S. government involved in approving participants. Anthropic said its generally available models carry conservative cyber safeguards that block most cyber work. Enrolled organizations must accept data retention so the company can monitor for misuse.
Sources: Healthcare IT News
iRhythm Begins Notifying Patients of June Data Theft
Wearable cardiac monitor maker iRhythm has started issuing notification letters to individuals affected by a June 2026 hacking and data theft incident, HIPAA Journal reported Friday. The company’s review confirmed the exposed data includes patient names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, patient account numbers, device serial numbers, insurance numbers, dates of birth and dates of service. More than 360,000 individuals in Texas and South Carolina alone were affected, though the total remains unclear. The threat actor reached third-party hosted business applications through social engineering. iRhythm said its products, clinical and medical device systems, customer connections and patient safety were never affected.
Sources: HIPAA Journal
Forescout Finds Just 6% of Medical Devices Ready for Quantum-Era Attacks
Healthcare organizations are unprepared for cybersecurity threats from quantum computing, according to a Forescout report covered Thursday by Healthcare Dive. Researchers analyzed more than 2.5 million devices across more than 50 healthcare organizations and found just 6% of medical devices have security able to withstand future quantum attacks, compared with 50% of IT systems. Only 31% of more than 5,500 internet-facing healthcare systems support an encryption protocol capable of post-quantum cryptography. Forescout vice president Daniel Trivellato said the pressing concern is “harvest now, decrypt later,” in which attackers collect encrypted data today hoping to decrypt it later. Forescout also tracked 461 ransomware claims against providers globally from January through August.
Sources: Healthcare Dive
Houston Methodist Reports 7% Surgical Volume Gain with Image-Based AI
Houston Methodist documented a 7% increase in cardiothoracic surgical case volume after deploying Apella’s image-based AI platform, Healthcare IT News reported Friday. Using a synthetic control analysis, a virtual twin built from other Houston Methodist operating room sites, staff found the 15-room cardiothoracic suite completed approximately 25 additional cases per month over 10 months. Roberta Schwartz, executive vice president and chief innovation officer, called the increase statistically significant. Case mix stayed stable and operative minutes did not decrease; turnover times fell instead. The platform automatically identifies perioperative events and surfaces them through dashboards, scheduling tools and reports used by OR leaders, anesthesia teams and surgeons.
Sources: Healthcare IT News
Nextech Adds Agentic AI From Assort Health and EliseAI to Specialty EHR
Nextech is partnering with Assort Health and EliseAI to integrate agentic AI tools into its specialty electronic health record platform, Fierce Healthcare reported Friday. The multi-year deals give Nextech clients a choice of two AI patient access platforms connected to scheduling, intake, patient readiness, communications and follow-up workflows. The goal is to answer more patient inquiries, reduce front-office workload and convert more calls into appointments. Assort Health will co-develop an integrated agentic AI solution specifically for ophthalmology practices. “This is an important step in bringing agentic AI into specialty practice workflows in a practical, connected way,” Nextech CEO Rusty Frantz said. The partnerships include joint product roadmaps and co-investment.
Sources: Fierce Healthcare
Elsevier Launches ClinicalKey Nursing AI Built for Nurse Workflows
Elsevier launched ClinicalKey Nursing AI, a clinical AI tool built specifically for nurses and nursing workflows, Fierce Healthcare reported Friday. Nurses can ask clinical questions in natural language about procedures, medications and discharge planning, and receive answers with clear citations. Elsevier’s Clinician of the Future 2026 report found only 41% of nurses use AI for work, compared with 57% of doctors. In a four-week trial with 96 registered nurses, 94% said the tool increased their confidence in clinical decision-making, 91% said it fit their workflow and 73% reported time savings. Tracy Gosselin, chief nurse executive at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, called nurse-specific AI solutions essential.
Sources: Fierce Healthcare
Astrin and OpenLoop Bring Breast Cancer Blood Test to Telehealth in 48 States
Eligible women in 48 states can now access Astrin Biosciences’ Certitude breast cancer blood test through telehealth under a distribution partnership with OpenLoop Health, MobiHealthNews reported Friday. The companies said the expansion could reach approximately 75 million women. OpenLoop supplies physician ordering, home or local blood collection and guidance after results return. The test combines mass spectrometry with machine learning to identify protein patterns associated with breast cancer and is intended to supplement mammography, not replace it. Certitude is a laboratory-developed test that has not been cleared or approved by the FDA. It carries an introductory self-pay price of $525 and is not yet available in New York or Hawaii.
Sources: MobiHealthNews
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