| A group of 12 major health systems is partnering together in a new consortium with an AI company to try to make diagnosing patients’ symptoms faster, more accurate and more uniform. According to information shared exclusively with Health Brief, the unique alliance — known as the Diagnostic AI Consortium — will publish its findings next year on what works well. Why it matters: Delays in diagnoses can harm patients’ health. The consortium’s goal is to automatically prioritize the sickest patients and compress a diagnostic workup that usually takes days down into hours. → AI is increasingly incorporated into medicine, but this is a new effort where the health systems’ clinicians will collaborate with the company Aidoc to design the workflow and evaluate how it works in different organizations. The work includes sorting through questions about which patient cases get prioritized, who gets AI notifications, and how the system should change and iterate over time. By the numbers: The hospital systems care for a combined total of nearly 20 million patients annually. Who’s who? The initial members include Advocate Health, Cedars-Sinai Health System, Hartford Healthcare, Houston Methodist, Mercy, Mount Sinai Health System, Northwell Health, Northwestern Medicine, Sutter Health, University of Florida Health, University Hospitals of Cleveland, and WellSpan Health. What’s next: Other health systems may be able to learn from the alliance’s work. The group will publish its playbooks and deployment checklists. The consortium also plans to report metrics on topics such as: - Whether the time from when imaging scans are completed to when clinicians are notified holds up consistently across different environments;
- Whether prioritization ends up being similar in different organizations; and
- How implementation varies among institutions — and what differences factors such as local staffing make.
“That kind of transparency allows for the rapid improvement of models in complex workflows like radiology and the reading of those images. That is really unique,” Brian Anderson, president and CEO of the nonprofit Coalition for Health AI (CHAI), told Rebecca. CHAI is not a consortium member, but the company involved, Aidoc, is one of its members. The data also might be used to support Food and Drug Administration authorizations. Zoom out: Medical professionals are already using AI for a number of uses, including taking notes on doctor-patient conversations and checking AI tools based on scientific studies for help in figuring out what is causing patients’ symptoms. Health systems are starting to shift from one-by-one applications to the broader use of diagnostic AI. With an aging population and a projected doctor shortage, supporters of using AI say the technology is promising. But examining imaging and other pieces of specific patients’ records with AI to help diagnose their problems can still be challenging. The alliance aims to continuously monitor the systems for drift and bias across patient populations and sites. “Realizing the potential of AI to transform medical imaging — and, ultimately, health care — requires rigorous validation and broad collaboration,” said Neil M. Rofsky, system chair of radiology at Mount Sinai Health System. He added that the “scale, diversity of data and clinical expertise” of the group will help develop AI models that could be used by clinicians across diverse health care settings. “These efforts will also help lay the foundation for AI that supports better clinical decision-making throughout the patient journey and, ultimately, improves patient care,” said Rofsky. Elad Walach, CEO and co-founder of Aidoc, said: “For a long time, the industry treated speed and safety as opposing forces in AI: Silicon Valley’s ‘move fast and break things’ against medicine’s ‘first, do no harm.’ This consortium is built on the belief that it can be done the right way, guided by two principles: iteratively and together.” The Senate is set to begin clearing one of the Trump administration’s most significant personnel backlogs. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) set up a vote on Wednesday to advance Erica Schwartz to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The move tees up Schwartz’s confirmation, who would be the first permanent CDC director since Susan Monarez was fired last August following clashes with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Monarez told senators last year she’d been let go after refusing to go along with plans to roll back the childhood vaccination schedule. Schwartz, who advanced out of the Senate’s health committee with just one Democratic vote, is the third attempt to fill the role. The Trump administration’s first nominee for the position, former representative Dave Weldon (R-Florida), withdrew when he did not have the votes for confirmation. Zoom out: If the Senate votes to confirm Schwartz, it will fill the role atop the CDC — though it’s just one of the key health agency vacancies. - Both the surgeon general and the leader of the FDA are being held by acting or interim officials. Several institutes within the National Institutes of Health are without permanent leadership.
- Nicole Saphier, President Donald Trump’s pick to serve as surgeon general, has not yet had a confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP), and the White House hasn’t named a nominee to helm the FDA.
- The Senate is also considering Sean Kaufman to be the Assistant Secretary of Preparedness and Response.
Why it matters: Schwartz, a physician and attorney who served as deputy surgeon general during Trump’s first term, faced scrutiny during her confirmation hearing over whether she would preserve the CDC’s scientific independence amid Kennedy’s efforts to reshape federal vaccine policy. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), a physician who leads the Senate HELP Committee, ultimately backed her nomination after saying he received assurances from the Department of Health and Human Services about scientific oversight. “I am confident that she knows what she is doing and will stand against those who don’t,” Cassidy said before announcing his vote to advance Schwartz’s nomination. → Meanwhile, Kennedy sparred with Dana Bash during a recent CNN appearance over his views on vaccines, a link between acetaminophen and autism, and an escalating measles outbreak that’s the second-worst since the 2,126 cases in 1992. There have been an estimated 2,371 cases of measles so far this year, compared to 2,289 in 2025 and a fraction of those amounts, 285, in 2024. What’s next?: If confirmed, Schwartz would take over an agency confronting major public health challenges, including the ongoing measles outbreak and a number of foodborne illnesses circulating around the country. She’ll also be tasked with stabilizing an agency that’s still grappling with cuts imposed by the Trump administration. The Trump administration is sending states a 173-page tool kit designed to help prevent fraud among autism therapy providers under Medicaid, the federal and state health care coverage program for the low-income and people with disabilities. Medicaid covers more than 66 million people. One of the services federal officials are targeting is applied behavior analysis, or ABA, which is typically intended to use positive reinforcement to assist people with autism disorders develop social and daily living skills — while decreasing negative behavior. By the numbers: Between 2021 and 2025, ABA spending in Medicaid and CHIP climbed 421 percent, far more than the 67 percent growth in the number of children with autism receiving services, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “Every dollar lost to fraud or waste is a dollar that cannot reach a child who genuinely needs it,” said CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz in a press release. One of the reminders in the toolkit is that spending must be supported by documented records verifying actual payments, such as invoices, payment vouchers, provider cost reports and Medicaid beneficiary eligibility records for fee-for-service care. The information includes a number of best practices, including monitoring ownership changes in ABA provider organizations, which CMS called “essential to maintaining program integrity.” CMS notes that most, but not all, states require provider certification by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board, a nonprofit. News organizations including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and The Post have written about autism therapy expenses. “We are helping states shut down fraud schemes that exploit children with autism and misuse funds from American taxpayers,” Kennedy said. “This toolkit gives states practical tools that may be used to identify bad actors, protect families and hold providers accountable. “How predatory trade schools drained $300 million from the GI Bill and failed veterans,” report Craig Whitlock and Andrew Ba Tran of The Washington Post. “Treatment trials for Ebola strain behind Congo outbreak show promise, WHO says,” reports Olivia Le Poidevin at Reuters. “AI Is Being Used to Boost Medicaid Enrollment, but Not Without Concerns,” Mark Kreidler reports at KFF Health News. “Spotlight on Fauci Said to Boost Book Sales for Kennedy and His Publisher,” Sheryl Gay Stolberg reports at the New York Times. “The EPA Heralds Its Omaha Cleanup as a Success. But We Found Many Yards Still Have Toxic Levels of Lead,” report Chris Bowling, Flatwater Free Press; Cassandra Garibay at ProPublica, and Destiny Herbers and Leah Keinama at the Flatwater Free Press. This newsletter is published by WP Intelligence, The Washington Post’s subscription service for professionals that provides b | 
