Year after year, more Americans are affected by health care data breaches. Though health savings accounts, pharmacies, and major hospitals have all been attacked in 2024, a single data breach accounted for the vast majority of people’s data being exposed: Change Healthcare.
As reported by Cybernews and first discovered by the threat intelligence services firm ANY.RUN, hackers have started sending out phishing emails which contain broken or corrupt Microsoft Office or ZIP files.
President-elect Trump's plan to impose tariffs on imported goods will affect the prices of the approximately 75% of available U.S.-marketed medical devices that are manufactured out of the country, and more specifically the 69% of available U.S.-marketed devices that are manufactured solely outside of the U.S., according to GlobalData's Medsource Database, which collates data on the medical device supply chain. These tariffs may have negative consequences for a continually growing market due to an ageing population and increasing prevalence of long-term illnesses. As a result of these policy changes, companies will be forced to increase prices to make up for losses incurred by the proposed tariffs. Additionally, this may cause supply chain disruptions, reducing accessibility to medical devices and inflating the cost of these products due to the higher demand in comparison to the supply.
Makary has long advocated for reforms to the health care system and gained prominence during the pandemic for his criticisms of parts of the federal response. He has recently been supportive of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s nomination to become HHS secretary.
As Oracle and Epic march toward a head-on battle for supremacy in the huge market for electronic health records, the bromide about how “what got you here won’t get you there” will provide a stark example of why niche providers that dominated the on-prem world will be overmatched and pushed to the periphery in the modern world of cloud and AI.