Faced with a growing healthcare worker shortage and provider burnout, some North Carolina healthcare leaders have said there is great promise in artificial intelligence systems. The state's healthcare systems have been early adopters of AI tools — overt and invisible — that are shaping the patient and provider experience. Across North Carolina, AI is helping providers predict health risks, communicate with patients and manage administrative tasks.
Abbott Laboratories and DexCom said on Monday they have reached an agreement to settle all patent disputes between them related to continuous glucose monitoring devices. The agreement will dismiss all pending cases in courts and patent offices worldwide, along with a provision preventing legal action between the companies for patent and appearance disputes for the next 10 years.
In the universe of science, innovators are finding that A.I. hallucinations can be remarkably useful. The smart machines, it turns out, are dreaming up riots of unrealities that help scientists track cancer, design drugs, invent medical devices, uncover weather phenomena and even win the Nobel Prize. "The public thinks it's all bad," said Amy McGovern, a computer scientist who directs a federal A.I. institute. “But it's actually giving scientists new ideas. It's giving them the chance to explore ideas they might not have thought about otherwise." The public image of science is coolly analytic. Less visibly, the early stages of discovery can teem with hunches and wild guesswork. “Anything goes" is how Paul Feyerabend, a philosopher of science, once characterized the free-for-all. Now, A.I. hallucinations are reinvigorating the creative side of science. They speed the process by which scientists and inventors dream up new ideas and test them to see if reality concurs. It's the scientific method — only supercharged. What once took years can now be done in days, hours and minutes. In some cases, the accelerated cycles of inquiry help scientists open new frontiers.
Ascension, a healthcare company that operates 140 hospitals and 40 senior care facilities throughout the country, disclosed that it had suffered a data breach going back to May of 2024 affecting 5.6 million of its patients and employees. Ascension was hacked through a social engineering email from a ransomware gang that lured an employee of Ascension to download malware that enabled the hacker to steal Ascension's data.