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AI is helping make doctors the unwitting stars of deepfake videos that hawk questionable products or spread misinformation, prompting calls from clinicians for more privacy and transparency laws. (Reed, 5/6)

Pennsylvania has sued an artificial intelligence chatbot maker, saying its chatbots illegally hold themselves out as doctors and are deceiving the system’s users into thinking they are getting medical advice from a licensed professional. The lawsuit, filed Friday, asks the statewide Commonwealth Court to order Character Technologies Inc., the company behind Character. AI, to stop its chatbots “from engaging in the unlawful practice of medicine and surgery.” The lawsuit could raise the question as to whether artificial intelligence can be accused of practicing medicine, as opposed to regurgitating material on the internet. (Levy, 5/5)

So far, artificial intelligence company OpenAI’s work in health care has been largely limited to nonregulated areas. In January, the company released ChatGPT Health for consumers. Then, it launched ChatGPT for Healthcare for hospitals, followed by ChatGPT for Clinicians. (Trang, 5/6)

When Hippocratic AI wanted input on the design of a new tool to streamline nurses’ work, it called in the experts — health systems and their nursing leaders. Nurse executives from Cleveland Clinic, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and OhioHealth played a key role in the generative artificial intelligence company’s Nurse Co-Pilot tool released last month, helping determine the use cases, the app’s design, the work flow and agent conversations. The company said the result is a tool that allows nurses to deploy AI voice agents to help with admissions, patient and family education and discharge preparation. (Famakinwa, 5/5)

The Trump administration is testing out a new 10-year program for value-based chronic condition management that leans heavily on technology and artificial intelligence to scale to large populations of patients. Many of the 150 digital health companies tapped to participate in the first cohort of the tech-enabled chronic care model are bullish that it marks an inflection point for connected care and a way to prove out that AI-enabled medical services can move the needle on cost and quality. (Landi, 5/4)

A new artificial intelligence model developed by the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, can help specialists detect pancreatic cancer up to three years before most clinical diagnoses, allowing curative treatment. (Hille, 5/5)

The number of hospital-based shootings rose steadily over the past quarter-century, a systematic review showed. From 2000 to 2024, shootings increased from 6 to 34 events per year, representing a 6.4% increase each year, Sarayna McGuire, MD, MS, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and colleagues reported in JAMA Network Open. "We recognize that although hospital-related shootings constitute a small fraction of national firearm violence, their impact could be profound," McGuire and colleagues wrote, noting there were more than 48,000 firearm-related deaths in 2022, per CDC data. (Henderson, 5/5)

A California hospital trade group sued to stop Elevance Health from implementing a policy that would cut payments to hospitals that refer some members to out-of-network providers. In a complaint filed Monday in the state Superior Court of Los Angeles County, the California Hospital Association contended the policy allegedly violates state consumer protection and healthcare laws. The 400-member hospital lobbying group seeks an injunction to block the penalty in California, along with declaratory relief. (Tepper, 5/5)

Aurora Mental Health & Recovery is the latest community mental health center to drastically cut its workforce, eliminating 111 positions and reviving a conversation about the state’s funding model shake-up that centers warned would cause them problems. (Brown, 5/5)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: A New Medicare Option For Weight Loss Drugs: What Older Americans Should Know

Starting in July, Medicare beneficiaries may be able to get a GLP-1 prescription for weight loss for $50 a month. It’s a notable shift for Medicare, which has long been barred from covering weight loss treatments. The drugs, such as Wegovy and Zepbound, are effective but can be expensive without insurance coverage. They’re available in injection or pill form. Even with discounts, current cash prices typically range from $149 to $699 per month. About half of GLP-1 users say these drugs were difficult for them to afford, according to �鶹Ů�� polling. A quarter said they were “very difficult” to afford. (Fortiér, 5/6)