Monday Morning Update 4/21/25

Top News

A Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency advisory recommends that users of the legacy Oracle cloud environment take several precautionary actions following a recent breach that exposed user credentials.

A hacker has claimed to have exfiltrated 6 million records that could affect 140,000 Oracle Cloud tenants. Security researchers believe that the claim is accurate, although Oracle continues to deny that information was exposed.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Company trust apparently erodes when its leadership’s designer footwear has rarely trod the uncarpeted parts of the hospital.

New poll to your right or here: What’s the hardest lesson you’ve learned in your health tech career? Add a comment if your favorite wasn’t listed. Mine would be that it doesn’t matter that you work for a great company if your boss is a challenge.

Thanks to industry veteran Doug Brown of Black Book Research for designing and conducting an excellent industry survey about HIStalk’s position among health tech media sources, as requested by some of my sponsors. Lorre sent him basic information and he was off to the races with a well-designed study methodology and sample size. The results intrigued him so much that he ran a second survey that covered general trust in health tech media. I’ll post a summary later, but some points are:

• HIStalk was #1 in Trust Index Rankings among all health tech media.
• HIStalk was #1 in engagement and influence. Some of the sources that seem popular or that are run by big corporations actually scored 0% or 1% in engagement (i.e., despite appearances, nobody’s paying attention).
• Respondents are fed up with media sources that run vendor-sponsored material without disclosing their paid relationships (it would be tacky of me to list the bottom finishers in this category, but you can take a guess). 
• The poll’s summary, which I’m shamelessly bragging about, is this: “HIStalk stands out for its influence, independence, and continued relevance to the decision-makers shaping the future of health IT … influencing perception, credibility, and market momentum at the highest levels.”

Sponsored Events and Resources

None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Sales

• NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde taps Doccla to power a 1,000-bed virtual hospital as part of its hospital-at-home rollout in Scotland.

Announcements and Implementations

Leidos will invest $10 million over five years in a partnership with University of Pittsburgh to develop AI-powered digital pathology tools for early disease detection.

Sky Lakes Medical Center (OR) will lay off 70 employees, most of them in patient financial services and coding, due to the implementation of IKS Health technology that includes ambient documentation.

UK regulators approve the use of robotic surgery for 11 procedure types in NHS specialty centers, hoping to trim patient backlogs and streamline care.

Government and Politics

FDA will phase out animal testing for drugs and move to AI-based models.

Privacy and Security

A misconfigured database that is owned by Scotland-based healthcare staffing software vendor Logezy exposes 8 million records, including ID documents, work authorizations, certificates, timesheets, user photos, and electronic signatures.

Other

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman says that ChatGPT diagnosed and resolved his persistent jaw-clicking in one minute, a problem that specialists hadn’t been able to fix in over five years. He credits the chatbot with recommending a simple mouth-opening technique that realigned his jaw. Hoffman disputed a reader’s comment that doctors must hate ChatGPT: “If implemented correctly, AI could help doctors diagnose individual patients faster, do less paperwork, and see more patients in a day.”

Sponsor Updates

• Black Book Research’s survey of UK healthcare leaders dives into the potential impact of NHS restructuring on digital health planning.
• Nordic releases a new “Designing for Health” podcast episode titled “Interview with Resa Lewiss, MD.”
• Praia Health and Abundant Health Acquisition partner to deliver the first end-to-end, personalized consumer experience for healthcare systems.
• Visage Imaging will exhibit at SIIM 2025 May 21-23 in Portland, OR.
• Vyne Medical will sponsor and exhibit at NAHAM’s annual conference April 30-May 3 in Phoenix.

Blog Posts

• What You Need to Know About Interoperability and How it Affects You (Netsmart)
• Patient care continuity: Safeguarding Epic EHR access during disruptions (Nordic)
• How Autonomous Medical Coding Can Speed Up Claims Processing (Nym)
• Turning Data Into Insights at USA Health (RLDatix)
• We’re a Designated QHIN! Here’s What That Means for You (Surescripts)
• Recapping AONL 2025: Key Takeaways & Insights (Symplr)
• Key Takeaways From IPMI Healthcare Finance Institute 2025 (Tegria)

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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