Samwise Healthcare IT Newsletter
Wednesday, July 29, 2026
AnMed given 72 hours to respond to demands in ransomware incident
AnMed, a nonprofit health system serving upstate South Carolina and northeast Georgia, was hit with a malware incident on Sunday that knocked out IT systems, internet access and more. The Anderson, South Carolina-based health system says it was given 72 hours to pay a ransom or see patient data leaked, according to a report from local NBC affiliate WYFF. Surgeries and elective procedures were canceled, while the AnMed Medical Group and all imaging services were closed. Oncology and radiation services were also offline. Emergency departments, general lab services and urgent care remained open. AnMed said it is working with third-party cybersecurity specialists, state and federal authorities to restore systems.
Sources: Healthcare IT News
With AI advancing so rapidly, organizations must lean in on security and integrity
With healthcare organizations now considering between 200 and 500 AI tools in their queues, leaders from CHAI and NIST say integrated governance, risk management and product-led development are essential for building trust. Brendan Hill, CHAI’s head of operations and general counsel, says one of the hardest parts to implement is AI monitoring: “There are no clearly defined metrics for what we should monitor.” He recommends risk-based tiers — routing low-risk tools through streamlined checks while high-risk tools undergo intensive review. NIST’s Julie Chu adds that organizations that elevate a risk demonstrate strong governance, not failure. NIST’s AI Risk Management Framework is undergoing updates.
Sources: Healthcare IT News
AI misdiagnoses raise new liability questions for health systems
A Florida lawsuit alleging that AI contributed to a patient’s delayed cancer diagnosis is raising legal questions for health systems, says medical malpractice attorney Rick Groffsky of Sommers Schwartz. Physicians remain at the center of malpractice analysis because courts still expect clinicians to exercise independent medical judgment. “An AI tool is one more input to consider in that judgment, but it is not a replacement for it,” Groffsky said. He expects courts to increasingly divide responsibility among physicians and provider organizations. AI vendors may also face growing scrutiny when training data underrepresents patient populations, causing models to consistently miss conditions affecting those groups.
Sources: Healthcare IT News
New research framework aims to assess and track clinical AI models
Stanford Medicine’s ARISE Healthcare Network has launched MAST v1.0 — the Medical Artificial Intelligence Superintelligence Test — to benchmark clinical AI models across diagnosis, management and safety. Published Monday in Nature, the framework grew from the NOHARM study, an independent clinical AI safety evaluation of 45 large language models and four clinical AI systems. Researchers found that “the highest-performing models are closely clustered on the composite rankings, but the ordering changes across clinical dimensions” — and no single model dominates. ARPA-H separately awarded researchers from Stanford and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center $3.8 million to build a task-first AI benchmark grounded in EHR pipelines.
Sources: Healthcare IT News
HHS taps AI to accelerate research for chronic disease
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced it will join the White House’s Genesis Mission with an AI initiative designed to accelerate biomedical discoveries and investigate the causes of chronic disease. Working with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, HHS will establish National Science and Technology Challenges inviting researchers to apply AI to major health problems. The flagship challenge will focus on identifying root causes of chronic disease, with additional challenges addressing pediatric cancer and drug-development timelines. NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said the goal is to “uncover the root causes of disease, accelerate the development of new treatments, and build a biomedical research ecosystem.”
Sources: Healthcare IT News
Ascension’s telehealth strategy: Building an enterprise, not a program
Ascension’s Dr. Krisda Chaiyachati, associate vice president of clinical transformation and recent recipient of the American Telemedicine Association’s Leadership in Care Transformation Award, says sustainable telemedicine means building an enterprise model, not standalone programs. Rather than deploying isolated virtual systems, Ascension kept virtual care tightly integrated with its electronic health record. “Keeping virtual care connected within the secure electronic health record environment was essential because continuity of care shouldn’t change simply because the interaction happens through a screen,” Chaiyachati said. One example is Ascension’s tele-neurology program, which connects patients experiencing neurological emergencies — including stroke — with specialists using shared technology platforms and centralized clinical staffing.
Sources: Healthcare IT News
Wellstar cuts 761 jobs, about 2% of its 35,000-person workforce
Marietta, Georgia-based Wellstar Health System has cut 761 positions — about 2% of its more than 35,000-employee workforce — effective July 28, the health system announced. The reductions affect corporate and shared services functions, as well as certain administrative roles within Wellstar Medical Group, according to a spokesperson’s statement shared with Becker’s Hospital Review. Front-line care team roles are not affected. “These changes will help us simplify our structure, clarify roles, strengthen accountability and move decision-making closer to the people who care for patients, while positioning Wellstar for continued long-term sustainable growth,” the spokesperson said. The cuts follow a Moody’s credit rating upgrade to “A1” in April.
Sources: Becker’s Hospital Review
Curated by JD · samwise.agency