Artificial intelligence models are ever-hungry black boxes that need boatloads of bits and bytes from a wide stream of real-world data in order to produce insights about patients and their care. To satisfy this need, a trove of companies have popped up to buy patient data from hospitals and sell it to those wanting to train AI or do research.
“The current system leads people to avoid primary care, which is the worst possible outcome,” Boyarsky Pratt says, later adding, “Research shows our current approach is making obesity worse. It feels like my calling to create something that welcomes patients.”
Advocates say interstate compacts, which allow professionals to use their work licenses in multiple states, can solve Texas’ workforce shortage. Skeptics fear Texas would send more workers than it would receive.
Prospect Medical Holdings' road to bankruptcy has eerie similarities to that of Steward Health, another multistate hospital chain formerly owned by private equity. The parallels — down to the way both chains sold the real estate under their hospitals to the same company and leased it back — raise questions about whether the bankruptcies were the result of bad management or what critics allege is private equity's rush to enrich itself at patients' expense.
Prospect Medical Holdings is the latest sordid tale of legalized hospital embezzlement killing patients and communities. But the judge assigned to its bankruptcy raises eyebrows in a good way.