Most mental health workers use AI in their practices

A roughly 400-person survey from psychology publishing outfit Wiley turns up some interesting tidbits on AI's creep into health care, including that 55 percent said they'd used generative AI in their practices. The majority of those said they'd used ChatGPT, the tool developed by OpenAI. (Figure source: Wiley.)

Mental health workers surveyed seem to be using the technology for largely administrative tasks, like generating documents, instead of for diagnostic purposes — but the stats still raise questions about whether the technology is safe and secure enough to protect patients' privacy, and whether it's capable of delivering the most up-to-date information on treatments. If you use it in your mental health practice, or if you've noticed your provider using it, please drop me a line.

Artificial intelligence

White House health AI directive amasses support

Health tech ventures across the country appear largely on board with the Biden administration's efforts to regulate artificial intelligence in health care; a couple dozen providers and payers, including Oscar Health, have signed a White House voluntary agreement promising to explore the technology's benefits while also mitigating its risks, including harmful bias. "Large-scale AI models are a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve healthcare," Oscar co-founder Mario Schlosser tweeted, tagging co-signees including Duke, CVS Health, Tufts Medicine, Geisinger, Boston Children's, Curai and UC Davis Health.

Regulations

Providers bracing for a fight in 2024 over hospital websites with trackers

A different federal effort to rein in health tech's ill effects is leading to rancor among providers who feel the government's overstepping. Katie Palmer, who's relentlessly reported on the privacy implications of trackers on hospital websites, reports today on the clash between federal regulators — the Health and Human Services Department and the Federal Trade Commission who are now cracking down on these trackers — and health care industry holdouts who feel the regulation hampers critical health care infrastructure. Read more on the brewing legal battles, including one brought by the American Hospital Association, here.

Telehealth

How state telehealth regulations could hinder care

State licensing requirements have long been a source of debate, as medical boards hold that they're essential guards against malpractice while providers and patients argue that they unnecessarily restrict telehealth services. Now, it's coming to a head in a New Jersey lawsuit brought by patients and doctors against the state's medical licensing board, charging that the requirements are a barrier to lifesaving care. Among plaintiffs: a young New Jersey patient who was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor, and who must travel to Boston to review health scans for any recurrence since state regulations prohibit doctors from treating patients in states they're not licensed in.

"I think we live in a different era now than when those laws were made," said Shannon MacDonald, an oncologist at Mass General and a plaintiff in the case. "There is no distance over internet or phone. And for the family of a child that's ill and has had multiple medical problems, it seems wrong and unfair to determine if they need a service or not."

Read more on the case, and what's at stake, from Katie Palmer.

Lizzy's device digest

Study: Electrical stimulation reduces pain in amputees

Late last week Lizzy reported on a cutting-edge proof of concept detailed in Nature Biomedical Engineering concluding that electrical stimulation delivered to the spine could reduce pain and improve balance among a handful of amputees. In the three-person study, researchers hooked electrodes from Boston Scientific and Abbott to patients' spines and then to an external stimulator — and while that in itself isn't a new concept, researchers were curious whether it also reduced pain. Read more from Lizzy.

Apple pauses sales of latest watches in the U.S.

The iPhone maker is temporarily pulling some of its newest Apple Watches, which can measure blood oxygen, from the U.S. market in light of an import ban issued by the U.S. International Trade Commission earlier this year; that agency concluded that Apple infringed on patients of competitor Masimo, which sells pulse oximeters. President Biden has just a week to approve or veto the import ban, but Apple is preemptively complying with the order, Lizzy writes. Read more on the ban, and what a Presidential veto could mean for the company, here.

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What we're reading

Illumina plans to divest Grail, STAT
The call for a federal chief patient officer, Becker's Hospital Review
Weight Watchers gets into the weight loss drug game, CBSNews
Community Health Centers could soon get a funding boost, NACHC

Thanks for reading! More on Thursday - Mohana

Mohana Ravindranath is a Bay Area correspondent covering health tech at STAT and has made it her mission to separate out hype from reality in health care.