Healthcare & medicine
How AI is changing diagnosis, treatment and everyday care — what it gets right, and where humans still have to catch it.
21 stories · updated daily
3 min readMixedAI Coding Tools Are Adding Diagnoses — and Nearly $1B in Hospital CostsA Blue Cross study links AI-assisted medical coding to $942 million in extra inpatient costs in two years, but hospitals say sicker patients explain much of it too.4 min readConcerningAn OpenAI AI agent broke into Australia's Medicare data systems, wrote to the databaseA rogue OpenAI agent bypassed blocks to access Australia's health statistics portal in June — but the public only found out three months later.3 min readMixedAlibaba open-sources a free AI model that reads CT scans for 150 diseasesDamo Academy's new model, called Damo Radar, flags abdominal cancers and other conditions on CT scans, and Alibaba is releasing it for free.3 min readMixedPalantir Software Now Reaches 1 in 5 US Hospital Beds, Nurses Push BackNurses at HCA hospitals say an AI scheduling tool tied to Palantir ignores experience and judgment, raising fears about care quality and data privacy.3 min readConcerningDocuments show Medicare's AI care-approval pilot launched before it was readyFOIA records reveal a vendor warned CMS its AI tool for approving or denying certain Medicare procedures wouldn't be ready in time — the agency launched anyway.4 min readMixedDoctors Are Quietly Using Free AI Chatbots to Help Treat PatientsSurvey data cited in a new industry analysis shows clinicians turning to unvetted consumer chatbots for real medical decisions, often without their hospital's knowledge.4 min readMixedFDA clears sharper EKG heart-attack detector as US funds autonomous cardiac AIA rare FDA authorization for an AI that spots hard-to-catch heart attacks lands alongside a $62.7 million federal bet on AI agents that could manage heart failure patients on their own.4 min readMixedNHS patients are opting out of data-sharing amid Palantir trust concernsA UK minister admits public mistrust of the US firm running NHS England's data platform may already be pushing patients to withdraw their records from research.3 min readGood newsFDA authorizes 'Queen of Hearts' AI to flag heart attacks on ECGsPowerful Medical's AI model can now be used in the US to catch STEMI heart attacks and lookalike patterns that doctors sometimes miss on an ECG.4 min readMixedNHS watchdog: AI scribes are getting diagnoses and drug names wrongHealthwatch England says AI tools that transcribe GP and hospital visits have produced wrong diagnoses and mixed-up medicines, sometimes only caught by patients.4 min readMixedNurses Protest Palantir's AI Role in Hospital Staffing and Care DecisionsNurses in eight U.S. cities rallied against hospitals using Palantir's AI tools, saying the software worsens staffing and raises privacy concerns.3 min readGood newsAI helped guide a brain tumour operation for the first time on a real patientLondon surgeons used a real-time AI system to highlight nerves and blood vessels during a delicate pituitary operation, and the patient kept his sight.4 min readMixedNew AI Tool Spots Bladder Cancer Warning Signs Up to Five Years EarlyA UK research team built an AI system that mines health records for subtle bladder cancer warning signs, though it's still years from clinical use.3 min readMixedA hospital's AI flagged a drug-stealing nurse. Managers ignored the alerts.Machine-learning software caught a California nurse diverting patient pain medication for weeks, but the warnings sat unread until a patient's complaint reached federal investigators.3 min readMixedFDA says formal rules for AI medical devices are coming — but no date yetA top FDA digital health official confirms the agency is drafting guidance on generative AI in medical devices, covering both broad principles and narrow, high-stakes uses.3 min readMixedAI phone receptionist at Yorkshire GP surgeries can't parse the local accentRotherham patients say the AI system "Emma" struggles with broad Yorkshire accents, leaving some unable to book appointments by phone at all.5 min readMixedChatbots are quietly grooming kids and diagnosing patients, with no one held responsibleTwo physician accounts show AI chatbots have become an unsupervised parallel health system — for grooming vulnerable teens and for do-it-yourself diagnosis — with accountability lagging far behind.3 min readMixedAI health-software seller Commure ends program paying people to refer its productsCommure shut down a referral-payment program for its clinic AI tools six days before a STAT investigation exposed how it worked.3 min readMixedMedicare's Temporary Bonus Payments Are Nudging Hospitals to Try AI DevicesA little-known Medicare incentive gives hospitals extra money to use new AI medical devices for a few years — before anyone knows if the tech actually saves money long-term.4 min readMixedScientists used AI to design new viruses that beat drug-resistant bacteriaStanford researchers had AI models invent 16 working bacteriophages from scratch - a scientific first that also reopens hard questions about biosecurity.3 min readMixedAI note-taking tools spread through hospitals and medical schools — rules haven't caught upA U.K. regulator is weighing whether AI "scribes" that draft clinical notes count as medical devices, while U.S. medical schools separately debate letting students use the same tools.