Healthcare AI Beyond the Buzzwords: Ambient, Generative, and Agentic Explained Presented by Greenway Health

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Featured Story   Rare Enzyme Deficiency Gets Its First FDA-Approved Treatment The regulatory decision The FDA approved Gencyclos, an Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical gene therapy developed to treat glycogen storage disease type Ia (GSDIa), an inherited enzyme deficiency that leads to hypoglycemia. Standard treatment for this ultra-rare disorder has been dietary: consuming raw cornstarch every few hours — day and night — to maintain blood glucose levels. Gencyclos is the first therapeutic option approved for treating GSDIa. The regulatory decision covers patients age 8 and older, which is how it was tested in clinical trials. The therapy Genglycos uses an engineered virus to deliver to cells a functioning version of the gene that codes for glucose-6-phosphatase, the deficient enzyme that’s at the root of the disorder. The gene therapy, a one-time treatment, is intended to restore stable expression of the key enzyme. Why this matters Uncooked cornstarch therapy has been practiced for decades. But besides the inconvenience of needing to wake up throughout the night to drink a cornstarch slurry, this approach also still leads to large swings in blood glucose levels. In a placebo-controlled Phase 3 study, results showed an average 70% reduction in nighttime cornstarch consumption. Soundbite “GSD1A is an urgent disease with round-the-clock demands on patients every day and night without holiday or break,” Ultragenyx President and CEO Emil Kakkis said. “A gene therapy designed to deliver the missing enzyme is [the] ideal way to address this severe ultra-rare disease.” —By Frank Vinluan Sponsored   Healthcare AI Beyond the Buzzwords: Ambient, Generative, and Agentic Explained Presented by Greenway Health The future of healthcare AI is not simply a technology conversation. It is a trust conversation.  Learn more. Top Stories   SCAN, Costco Launch Medicare Partnership The skinny SCAN Health Plan and Costco are partnering to launch a suite of insurance products focused on seniors, the companies announced on Tuesday. The partnership SCAN is a non-profit Medicare Advantage insurer serving 460,000 members across California, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, New Mexico and Washington. This is Costco’s first comprehensive partnership with a Medicare plan, according to the announcement. Through the partnership, which was first reported on by the Wall Street Journal, the companies will sell jointly branded Medicare Advantage products in two states and a Medicare supplement in a third state, though the companies did not say which markets. These products are subject to regulatory approval. The companies may also bring offerings in the coming years that include a “re-invented pharmacy experience,” over-the-counter benefits, vision, audiology and more. Soundbite According to SCAN’s CEO, Costco is a trusted brand among seniors, which is why the insurer chose to partner with the company. “If you think about the kinds of things that seniors go to Costco for, they go there for groceries, they go there for over-the-counter supplies, they go there for pharmacy, they go there for vision, they go there for hearing aids,” said Dr. Sachin Jain, CEO of SCAN Group and SCAN Health Plan, in an interview. “They have a high degree of trust in all of those categories of products. … I think we really want to take the things that Costco is already outstanding at and make them available through a Medicare Advantage or Medicare Supplement chassis.” — By Marissa Plescia AI in Pharmacovigilance: Why Governance Will Define Success A defining challenge Data volume has become a defining challenge for pharmacovigilance as social platforms, call centers, connected devices and other digital channels generate unprecedented amounts of safety-relevant information. Traditional approaches are increasingly strained, making it difficult to separate meaningful signals from background noise at speed and scale. This is where AI can play a targeted, high-impact role: enhancing efficiency, enabling earlier awareness of potential risks and supporting more proactive decision-making without replacing the regulatory judgment at the heart of safety reporting. When used with clear boundaries, AI helps organizations modernize PV operations while maintaining trustworthiness, control and regulatory rigor. Defined by mobility AI is no longer a future consideration for pharmacovigilance. It’s a present-day governance decision with regulatory consequences. PV and safety leaders must critically reassess whether their current models can withstand growing data volumes, expanding digital sources and rising regulatory expectations. Inaction carries clear exposure. Infrastructure matters Organizations that postpone modernization risk falling behind in adverse event identification timeliness, transparency of decision-making and demonstrable control, areas regulators increasingly scrutinize. Governance, explainability and human accountability are no longer aspirational principles; they are table-stakes. Leaders who do not establish strong guardrails and oversight now risk reactive compliance later, when remediation is more visible, costly and urgent. — By MedCity Influencer Anuradha (Annie) Prabhakar Rural US Healthcare Has A Cybersecurity Problem — CMS Funding Can Help Fix the Part No One Sees The money With the Rural Health Transformation Program, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is sending $50 billion to states over five years, with $10 billion available each year from fiscal year 2026 through 2030. All 50 states received first-year awards this year, averaging about $200 million and ranging from $147 million to $281 million. CMS also made technology part of the program’s design, including funding for data security, cybersecurity, remote care, interoperability, and other digital health tools.For rural providers, that matters because the cybersecurity gap is rarely about awareness. Most rural hospitals know they are exposed. How it can help With the CMS funding, states can take cybersecurity off the “we should really get to that” list and into a rural health investment plan. The best use of the money will be practical, such as shared cybersecurity services, risk-reduction readiness assessments, workforce support, response playbooks, and basic controls that are implemented well enough to hold up under pressure. Those may not sound like dramatic changes, but they are the work rural hospitals need most. The private sector has an important role in building that capacity. Rural hospitals often cannot hire a full cybersecurity team or build specialized cyber programs from scratch. Outside partners can help fill those gaps by providing managed detection, endpoint protection, readiness assessments, training, playbook development, and implementation support. The measure of success should be: does the hospital come out of the work with stronger basic cyber hygiene and a clearer path to improve? The goal Rural hospitals need trained people, tested backups, downtime procedures, clinical continuity planning, and staff who know what to do when an alert fires. A framework won’t substitute for that work, but it helps organize it and makes progress measurable. CMS funding gives states a chance to help rural hospitals build that muscle. A one-time assessment won’t get you there, but rather the goal is security practices a hospital can sustain over time. — By MedCity Influencer Bimel Sheth Video   Video: What did UHC CEO say in unprecedented meeting with reporters? Debunked: UnitedHealthcare invited reporters and influencers to their Minnesota HQ. Why? Hear the exchange between MedCity editor and the UnitedHealthcare CEO.

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Podcast   MedCity Pivot: How Aetna is Adopting Agentic AI In this episode of the MedCity Pivot Podcast, CVS Health Aetna's chief digital and technology officer talks about how the insurance business is using AI, especially agentic AI, in healthcare. Point to note: AI is not used in automatic denials of coverage. Watch Now

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