The Hidden First Step in Healthcare Ransomware Attacks Revealed | 2 Minute Drill with Drex DeFord

Small Health System’s AI Advantage and the ROI Question Nobody's Ready For | Newsday

June 22, 2026: Bill Russell and Drex DeFord launch into Newsday fresh off city tour dinners across Atlanta, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Rochester. The two dig into what's actually happening with AI on the ground: a smaller health system that vibe-coded a nurse scheduling app and made it work while bigger systems looked on skeptically, the build vs. buy debate coming back with new energy, and Anthropic's announcement that Claude now writes over 80% of its own production code. Plus: the ROI reckoning that's coming for every health system spending on AI, and a big Abridge announcement on the horizon. Key Points: * 02:30 Build Versus Buy AI * 10:55 Copilot Scale and ROI * 21:37 Mythos and Security * 25:25 Ambient AI Market Moves Keep up to date on the latest in health IT: https://thisweekhealth.com/news/ X: This Week Health [https://twitter.com/thisweekhealth] LinkedIn: This Week Health [https://www.linkedin.com/company/ThisWeekHealth] Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer [https://www.alexslemonade.org/mypage/3173454]

Innovating at the Speed of Trust and Fixing the Rev Cycle | The 229 Podcast with Shiv Rao

June 18, 2026: Shiv Rao [https://www.linkedin.com/in/shivdevrao/], Co-founder and CEO of Abridge [https://www.abridge.com/], has spent eight years building the company into something most people didn't see coming. Now live in 300+ health systems, touching 250 million patients and processing over 100 million clinical conversations a year. But Shiv isn't just a technologist. He still rounds at UPMC as a practicing cardiologist, and that dual lens shapes everything about how he thinks. In this conversation with Bill Russell, Shiv reframes what Abridge actually is: not an AI scribe, but computable infrastructure. The clinical conversation sits upstream of every workflow in healthcare, and what Abridge is building is the platform that proves it. Keep up to date on the latest in health IT: https://thisweekhealth.com/news/ Key Points: * 01:41 Big Announcement Beyond Notes * 06:29 Unified Patient Intelligence * 10:52 Enterprise AI and Trust * 15:59 Coalition With Payers and NVIDIA * 35:27 So What and Closing Bets X: This Week Health [https://twitter.com/thisweekhealth] LinkedIn: This Week Health [https://www.linkedin.com/company/ThisWeekHealth] Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer [https://www.alexslemonade.org/mypage/3173454]

When AI Says Yes: Social Engineering the Bots in Our Systems | 2 Minute Drill with Drex DeFord

A dormant Instagram account tied to the Obama White House started posting pro-Iranian content. No hacked password. No malware. No phishing email. Just a polite conversation with Meta's AI support agent. Researchers are calling it out plainly: AI agents are built to be helpful, and that eagerness is exactly what attackers are starting to exploit. The attack surface isn't the password anymore -- it's the agent. Health systems are deploying AI right now for scheduling, intake, and benefit verification. Has anyone on your team actually tried to socially engineer yours? Remember, Stay a Little Paranoid Thanks to Cyderes for sponsoring this episode: https://thisweekhealth.com/partners/cyderes/

Healthcare's AI Reckoning: Real Wins, Real Costs, Real Questions | Newsday

June 15, 2026: Bill Russell, Drex DeFord, and Sarah Richardson sit down to work through the question sitting at the top of every health system's agenda: what has AI actually done for us? Personal productivity gains are real. Meeting counts are dropping, hours are being saved, and individual leaders feel the difference. But the enterprise ROI case is proving harder to make. With Dave Lundahl's three-era framework for healthcare IT adding historical weight and the ambient listening wave cresting, the industry may be entering its accountability phase. Key Points: * 04:22 Governance Five Questions * 08:08 Cost ROI And Licenses * 10:04 Third Era Of Health IT * 17:49 Patient Companion Future * 23:47 Wrap Up And Next Week Keep up to date on the latest in health IT: https://thisweekhealth.com/news/ X: This Week Health [https://twitter.com/thisweekhealth] LinkedIn: This Week Health [https://www.linkedin.com/company/ThisWeekHealth] Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer [https://www.alexslemonade.org/mypage/3173454]

Creating a World without Passwords and Beating Social Engineering | Executive Interview with Peter Barker

June 10, 2026: In healthcare where downtime means lives, identity security is no longer just about who logs in. Bill Russell sits down with Peter Barker [https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterbarker/], Chief Product Officer at Ping Identity [https://www.pingidentity.com/en.html], to unpack why the agentic AI era demands a fundamental rethinking of identity. From giving AI agents first-class credentials to shifting the security boundary from login to the point of action. If your health system is deploying AI and you have not addressed non-human identity, this conversation is where to start. Keep up to date on the latest in health IT: https://thisweekhealth.com/news/ Key Points: * 01:18 Why Agents Change Identity * 07:43 Runtime Identity And Authorization * 15:00 Healthcare Passwordless Trust * 20:11 CISO Playbook And Wrap Up X: This Week Health [https://twitter.com/thisweekhealth] LinkedIn: This Week Health [https://www.linkedin.com/company/ThisWeekHealth] Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer [https://www.alexslemonade.org/mypage/3173454]