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What health IT leaders are talking about this week

New episode · October 16

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Microsoft took down Evil Tokens, a device code phishing service whose AI read stolen inboxes to find the money movers. Health ISAC was co-plaintiff.

Episode details

Weekly Brief

New this week

October 5–11, 2026

Published Wednesday, October 14

Ambient and evidence-based AI vendors are both repositioning as a clinical intelligence layer, while the measurable capacity wins sit in credentialing, scheduling and bed turnover, not in per-clinician time savings.

Dominating the week

  • Ambient AI beyond the scribe
  • Credentialing and ghost beds
  • Clinical content governance
  • Health IT workforce cuts

Drawn from conversations with Michal Nedoszytko, Venkat Kavarthapu and Yaw Fellin.

Read the full Weekly Brief

What they’re talking about

  1. 01

    Ambient documentation is being rebuilt as a three-part intelligence layer wrapped around the visit, not a scribe inside it.

    Abridge is building pre-visit (agent conversations that prep the patient), in-visit (ambient capture), and post-visit (follow-up) components, and has already shipped real-time voice agents that let physicians verbally query charts and close operative notes instead of typing. The stated ambition is flagging missed medications, guideline changes and care gaps — with 'Care Gap' prototypes in development with health system partners including University of Chicago, aimed at the behavioral rather than demographic reasons patients skip prophylactic visits.

  2. 02

    The capacity constraint most systems describe as clinical is actually administrative, and it has a number attached.

    Symplr CEO Venkat Kavarthapu, citing a hospital CFO, put 10-15% of national bed capacity in the 'ghost bed' category, staffed beds locked by upstream credentialing and scheduling bottlenecks rather than by staffing shortfalls. Credentialing runs 120-180 days industry-wide and nurse managers reportedly spend half their time on scheduling, making both concrete automation targets; a Becker's survey found 85% of nurses, NPs and physicians want AI applied to administrative burden.

  3. 03

    A 20% individual productivity gain from AI is not translating into organizational savings, and the layoffs are happening anyway.

    The panel agreed that per-user time savings from AI do not automatically convert into financial or capacity outcomes, the translation math remains unsolved for most systems. Meanwhile 2025 health IT reductions continued across Stanford (80 jobs), Trinity Health (557 positions outsourced), Wellstar (761 jobs), PeaceHealth (support shifting to Tech Mahindra/HCI Group in November), UPMC, MaineHealth and others.

  4. 04

    Vendors are competing on provenance and governance, not model capability — and the patient's claim on their own record is the open gap.

    Wolters Kluwer is embedding UpToDate natively into Epic workflows to end the link-out experience, positioning 7,000+ expert contributors and 30 years of editorial grading as 'earned trust' against generative AI error rates; its expert AI system surfaces its own assumptions (that a patient isn't pregnant, for example) rather than just citing sources. Separately, Michal Nedoszytko argues patients in most jurisdictions still have no legal entitlement to full visit transcripts even though the capture technology is already deployed — a gap he says protects neither patients nor physicians.

Recent guests

Jeremy Meller
CIO
John Henderson
CIDO
Josh Glandorf
Chief Information Officer, UC San Diego Health
Pete D'Addio
CTO/VP, Technology
Shane Thielman
Corporate Senior Vice President, Chief Information & Digital Officer
Steve LeBlond
Chief Information & Digital Officer
Terri Couts
CIDO
Will Landry
CIO
Julie Eastman
Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Lacy Knight
VP and Chief Health Informatics Officer
Lisa Johnson
Vice President of Clinical IT Solution Delivery Central Division (IS Leader, Central Division)
Falyn Curtis
VP, IS Clinical Systems
Glynis Cowart
SVP, CIO
Bonnie Boles
Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Information Officer
Maili Boynay
Vice Presdent, IS Applications
Jim Jacobs
President and CEO
Yaw Fellin
SVP & GM, UpToDate
John McDaniel
CIO
Christian Boucher
Healthcare CTO
Kay Burke
VP, Chief Nursing Informatics Officer
Jennifer Jones
CNIO & VP of Business Partenerships
Rachael Hill
CNIO/Director of Clinical Systems
Sherri Hess
CNIO
Russell Teague
Chief Information Security Officer
Jeremy Meller
CIO
John Henderson
CIDO
Josh Glandorf
Chief Information Officer, UC San Diego Health
Pete D'Addio
CTO/VP, Technology
Shane Thielman
Corporate Senior Vice President, Chief Information & Digital Officer
Steve LeBlond
Chief Information & Digital Officer
Terri Couts
CIDO
Will Landry
CIO
Julie Eastman
Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Lacy Knight
VP and Chief Health Informatics Officer
Lisa Johnson
Vice President of Clinical IT Solution Delivery Central Division (IS Leader, Central Division)
Falyn Curtis
VP, IS Clinical Systems
Glynis Cowart
SVP, CIO
Bonnie Boles
Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Information Officer
Maili Boynay
Vice Presdent, IS Applications
Jim Jacobs
President and CEO
Yaw Fellin
SVP & GM, UpToDate
John McDaniel
CIO
Christian Boucher
Healthcare CTO
Kay Burke
VP, Chief Nursing Informatics Officer
Jennifer Jones
CNIO & VP of Business Partenerships
Rachael Hill
CNIO/Director of Clinical Systems
Sherri Hess
CNIO
Russell Teague
Chief Information Security Officer

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