Tech

AI companions and loneliness

Ronke Lawal

Tech

October 26, 2025

Into this psychological wasteland, we’re now introducing AI companions as the solution. Meta’s personas, Character.AI’s virtual friends, and romantic chatbots; the market for artificial intimacy is exploding. The promise is seductive: connection without risk, companionship without effort, and validation on demand.

But here’s what these AI relationships actually do: They allow users to avoid the very challenges that build psychological resilience. Genuine relationships require vulnerability, the ability to tolerate conflict, and …

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AI companions and loneliness

The dangerous racial bias in dermatology AI

Alex Siauw

Tech

October 21, 2025

The Bay Area has become the epicenter of artificial intelligence, home to renowned startups and labs racing to prove AI’s power to transform our daily lives.

Just three months ago, California released its own Frontier AI Policy Report, commissioned by Governor Gavin Newsom, which warned that without stronger oversight and transparency, AI models threaten equity and accountability, especially in health care. Nowhere is this danger more urgent than in dermatology.

A …

Reinforcing trust in AI: a critical role for health tech leaders

Miles Barr

Tech

October 9, 2025

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to gain traction in health care, its potential to improve patient outcomes, streamline workflows and reduce human error is becoming increasingly evident. Many health care leaders are embracing AI as a core part of their digital transformation strategies. In fact, a recent study in Health Affairs, which analyzed data from the American Hospital Association, found that sixty-five percent of U.S. hospitals used predictive AI …

The digital divide in rural health care

Jason Griffin, MBA

Tech

September 30, 2025

Imagine your hospital’s entire IT operation grinding to a halt because of a snowstorm, cut fiber lines, or unstable internet connectivity. This is not a worst-case scenario for many rural health care providers; it is a regular reality. And it highlights just how fragile the digital infrastructure is in many parts of our country.

Across rural America, hospitals are losing physicians and fighting to stay open while serving communities …

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The digital divide in rural health care

One doctor’s journey to making an AI study tool less corrosive to critical thinking

Mark Lee, MD

Tech

September 30, 2025

At the risk of sounding out of the times, I think back to how simple education was back in the day: attend lectures, take notes, read books (gasp), do any relevant flashcards or question sets, and repeat. Indeed, this formula is a functional strategy for many prior generations of doctors. For my own medical journey, now fifteen years in as an otolaryngology resident, this simple strategy has worked well enough.

The …

Is it time to embrace augmented empathy while using artificial intelligence in health care?

Vanessa D‘Amario, PhD & Vijay Rajput, MD

Tech

September 30, 2025

Introduction: a double-edged disruptor

Artificial intelligence (AI) has quickly insinuated itself and is transforming nearly every corner of modern life. Health care is no exception. With the rise of advanced chatbots, symptom checkers, and health-focused algorithms, patients now have 24/7 access to vast medical knowledge at their fingertips in seconds. The excitement is understandable: AI can demystify medical “doctor-speak” or jargon, suggest possible diagnoses and treatment options, and empower patients to …

AI in your health care: a double-edged digital disruptor

Alan P. Feren, MD

Tech

September 26, 2025

Introduction: a double-edged disruptor

Why the future of AI in medicine is patient-facing

Colin Son, MD

Tech

September 26, 2025

I love technology. I love the health care AI I use every week including Viz.ai and OpenEvidence and Glass Health. I am generally a tech optimist. And even as cries of overhype on artificial intelligence start wading into the public discourse, I truly believe that AI will as fundamentally alter society and health care as the internet or the mobile phone.

But, I am convinced the whole industry is doing AI …

Digital mental health’s $20 billion blind spot

Ronke Lawal

Tech

September 25, 2025

As a founder in digital mental health, I’ve watched our industry celebrate reaching $8.34 billion in valuation while systematically failing 40 percent of the population. This isn’t just a moral failure, it’s a $20 billion market opportunity that’s being ignored because of cultural blindness. For physicians trying to refer diverse patients to digital mental health resources, the options are frustratingly inadequate. With the total U.S. behavioral health market valued …

How cloud-based simulation training is revolutionizing dentistry

Dr. Lincoln Harris

Tech

September 24, 2025

Before venturing into medicine, I was focused on aviation, training as a pilot at age 15. To this day, I can still recite every step of the engine-failure sequence from memory. Pilots are trained this way for a reason: They spend hours in simulators practicing under duress, so that when something goes wrong in the real world, they respond instinctively. By the time they are in the cockpit with passengers …

Your clinical notes can save lives with AI

Jalene Jacob, MD, MBA

Tech

September 22, 2025

The night shift was unusually calm. Mr. T, a 74-year-old admitted for pneumonia, had completed his evening antibiotics and was resting quietly. His blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, and oxygen saturation were all within normal limits. The nurse’s 2 a.m. note was brief but telling: “Less talkative tonight,” “Needed encouragement to walk to the bathroom,” “Left most of his dinner untouched.”

By morning, Mr. T was febrile, hypotensive, and confused. Within …

Alice in Wonderland: the AI first health system

Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA

Tech

September 19, 2025

Dara closes one eye, then the other. “What the hell?” she thinks. The vision in one eye is noticeably darker and worse than in the other eye. She exits the dark room, where she had been coding a new website for a client, and heads to the bathroom. She looks at herself in the mirror. Nothing seemed wrong with her eyes. Nothing hurts, well, maybe a slight headache, but she …

How I stopped typing notes and started seeing my patients again

William S. Micka, MD

Tech

September 14, 2025

I still remember the day the shiny new EHR went live. We were promised instant access to every lab, perfect legibility, and (my favorite buzzphrase) “more time for patient care.” What arrived instead was a blinking cursor waiting for someone to type every blood-pressure reading, family-history nuance, and treatment plan. That “someone” was often the physician. Handwritten scrawl, once dashed off in seconds (illegible but efficient), was replaced by after-hours …

How AI is reshaping preventive medicine

Jalene Jacob, MD, MBA

Tech

September 12, 2025

For years, preventive medicine has centered on screenings, routine checkups, and occasional lifestyle interventions. Now, artificial intelligence is transforming that approach. It offers the potential to shift from reactive care to truly proactive, preventive health care. With machine learning models capable of analyzing vast datasets, from electronic health records and genomics to neighborhood-level social determinants of health, AI is enabling us to predict disease before symptoms appear. This paves the …

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How AI is reshaping preventive medicine

Why clinicians must lead health care tech innovation

Kimberly Smith, RN

Tech

August 30, 2025

Over the past couple of years, advanced technological development, adoption, and implementation have grown exponentially across industries, including health care. What started with the adoption of advanced electronic health records (EHRs) — 96 percent of hospitals and 88 percent of physicians have adopted EHRs within the last decade — is now developing into the rapid growth of AI to support administrative tasks and data analytics. A 2024 survey found …

Why medical notes have become billing scripts instead of patient stories

Sriman Swarup, MD, MBA

Tech

August 28, 2025

We tell ourselves documentation is for patient safety. For continuity. For protection. But let’s be honest. It’s for billing. And once you see that clearly, it is hard to unsee.

In training, I was taught that the note reflects the thinking of the physician. That it should tell the story of the patient and the rationale for each decision. But in practice, it does not. It is a tool for revenue …

AI in health care is moving too fast for the human heart

Tiffiny Black, DM, MPA, MBA

Tech

August 27, 2025

Health care is in the middle of a technological reckoning. AI and IT innovations promise efficiency, predictive analytics, and system-wide transformation. Yet inside hospitals, clinics, and virtual care platforms, the psychological fallout tells a different story, one that leadership must reckon with before the cost becomes irreversible.

The silent resistance: Psychological transition vs. technical adoption

Most health care executives measure success by how fast they implement new systems. But psychological readiness is …

Why AI in health care needs the same scrutiny as chemotherapy

Rafael Rolon Rivera, MD

Tech

August 25, 2025

We’ve all seen the hype.

AI will revolutionize health care. It will cut documentation time. Improve diagnoses. Save lives. Maybe even replace doctors.

But here’s what I know after 11 years as a hospitalist: Hype without evidence is dangerous. And AI—especially in medicine—isn’t just software. It’s treatment.

If we’re going to let AI influence life-or-death decisions, it needs to meet the same standard as any clinical intervention. That means rigorous trials, transparent design, …

The silent cost of choosing personalization over privacy in health care

Dr. Giriraj Tosh Purohit

Tech

August 19, 2025

I still remember the first time a physician told me they felt they had become a “data clerk with a stethoscope.”

And to my surprise, it wasn’t about too many clicks; it was about trust.

As a product manager building EHRs, RCM systems, practice management tools, remote monitoring, and AI scribes for over 12,000 health care professionals across the U.S., I’ve spent countless hours listening to clinicians, shadowing workflows, and observing quiet …

Why trust and simplicity matter more than buzzwords in hospital AI

Rafael Rolon Rivera, MD

Tech

August 17, 2025

Everyone wants the best model. The flashiest algorithm. The one with the highest AUC and the sexiest machine learning buzzword attached.

But here’s the problem: In hospital care, especially at midsize institutions, the “best” model on paper might be the worst fit for your people, your patients, and your workflow.

As a hospitalist and data-minded clinician, I’ve been exploring how we can use AI to reduce 30-day readmissions—an outcome tied not just …