Healthcare

Healthcare

Level Health, which is backed by insurance giant Aviva, said it will increase the cost of three of its four plans by 4pc from February. The insurer has a price freeze in place till February. It comes as health insurance premium rises for VHI Healthcare, Laya Healthcare and Irish Life Health are set to be implemented from the start of January.

The healthcare industry continues its digital transformation, driven by the availability of open-source datasets. These datasets provide data scientists, researchers, and medical professionals with valuable insights to improve patient outcomes, streamline operations, and foster innovative treatments. Here are 18 top open-source healthcare datasets that are making a significant impact in healthcare research and can be helpful for those working in AI and data science. This is an updated version of our 2024 blog on open healthcare datasets, with new additions and revised information for 2026.

Even as the Department of Veterans Affairs prepares to resume go-lives of its new Oracle Health electronic health record system in 117 days, House lawmakers remain concerned about the modernization project's total cost and the agency's readiness for simultaneous deployments at medical facilities in the coming months. VA paused most rollouts of the new software in April 2023 to rectify technical issues, patient safety concerns and usability challenges at the sites where the system has been deployed.

hospital staff, during the final admission, decided to try an oral antibiotic but the requested drug was unavailable. An IV antibiotic was only given 34 hours after Graham arrived at hospital, and at half the dosage it should have been. There was also a three-hour delay between the doctor requesting the drug and it being administered, the report found. By the time a second dose of antibiotic was given, which was also delayed, Graham had become septic.

Hospitals are cancelling tens of thousands of appointments and operations after resident doctors voted overwhelmingly to reject a last-ditch government offer to avoid this week's strike. The health secretary, Wes Streeting, and the British Medical Association (BMA) are being urged to agree to see if an independent mediator can break the deadlock in the almost three-year-old pay and jobs dispute in England.

Imagine this scenario: Julie's doctor is accustomed to self-pay patients. A large proportion of the practice is made up of patients who don't have traditional insurance. Her doctor wants to order an expensive test. The staff let her know they've negotiated a discount with the test provider. If she pays through the doctor's office, she'll pay only 10 to 20 percent of what the company would bill her directly.

A children's hospice that has supported children living with complex life-limiting conditions for 25 years is due to close just days before Christmas. Richard House in Newham, east London, provides specialist care to more than 300 families - offering services such as residential care, transition from hospital to home, bereavement support and end-of-life care. NHS North East London said the hospice's board had taken the decision to close the facility on 18 December.

"We've been able to very effectively use AI in areas where a human should not be manually administering things that they otherwise would be," said Gangopadhyay. "We quote thousands of groups a week. In any other company, you're getting quoted these PDFs that are 12, 15, 20 pages long. And they're parsing through these PDFs manually...We've fully automated and optimized that process where our underwriters and our sales people are only doing the pieces that we need a human to be doing."

Starting Monday, the lowest dose vial will cost $299 a month for those who pay cash, Lilly said in a statement, a discount of about $50. The next higher dose will cost $399 a month, roughly 20% less than the previous self-pay price. Lilly isn't changing the price of higher doses, which are sold for $499 a month. It's the latest move in a price war with Denmark's Novo Nordisk, which is making it significantly less expensive for people to start the blockbuster medicines.

A little more than two years ago, I woke up in my childhood bedroom for the first time in more than three decades. I wasn't home just for a visit. In fact, I wasn't even back with my parents. At 41 years old, I moved in with my 88-year-old grandmother to take care of her. (I call her Mamaw as any good Texan kid would.)

Healthcare is a lifesaving service, which unfortunately makes it the target for attacks. In addition, healthcare workers face a number of risks including violent patients and distraught loved ones. Because of these risks, it's essential that healthcare organizations help protect their employees and guests. Security magazine highlights a few products that can help better secure healthcare facilities. Avigilon Utilizes AI to Search Through Recorded Video

He and Brody conspired to commit healthcare fraud by submitting fraudulent insurance claims so that Done members could dispense Adderall at pharmacies while continuing to pay their membership fees - resulting in $14 million in payouts from insurance companies, prosecutors said. The false claims said that Done did urine drug screenings, stated that non-stimulant drugs had been tried prior to stimulants and used the DSM-5 to diagnose ADHD.

In telephone calls carried out in Chinese, the scammers reel in targets under the pretense that they have unpaid bills related to recent surgical procedures. They use spoofed telephone numbers belonging to the claims departments of legitimate US health insurance providers to add a layer of authenticity to the scam, but that authenticity quickly evaporates. If, for some reason, targets entertain the conversation about paying for a surgery they almost certainly did not receive, the scammers get them to join a video call.

It's open enrollment season again-that period between October and November when workers must reacquaint themselves with "deductibles," "copays," and "premiums." Many would rather wait at the DMV, sit through a three-hour work meeting, or attempt to explain social media to tech-challeged loved ones than spend their afternoon selecting an insurance plan. That's why some workers are farming out everything on their health insurance to-do list to AI and social media.

The Patient Ombudsman's annual report released Thursday says there were 4,886 new complaints filed between April 2024 and March 2025, a 10 per cent increase over the year before. It also notes it resolved 4,863 complaints, some of which carry year-over-year. Among the issues highlighted in the report are that many patients don't feel heard; the need to improve discharge protocols in emergency rooms; use of force for challenging behaviours; and a lack of trauma-informed obstetrical/gynecological care, which The Canadian Press reported on in June.

In a statement published this week, Synnovis said the investigation "took more than a year to complete because the compromised data was unstructured, incomplete and fragmented, and often very difficult to understand." It added that specialist incident response teams had to use "highly specialized platforms and bespoke processes" to work through terabytes of jumbled information and identify which healthcare providers' patients were affected.