The Michigan facility where a hyperbaric chamber fire killed a 5-year-old child "held safety among their lowest considerations," the state attorney general said Tuesday, a day after four people were arrested in the boy's death. Thomas Cooper died Jan. 31 at the Oxford Center, an alternative medicine facility in the Detroit suburb of Troy that says it treats over 100 conditions, including Alzheimer's, autism and dyslexia. Those conditions are not cleared for hyperbaric oxygen therapy by the FDA, nor are the ones that a family attorney said Thomas' parents took him in for: sleep apnea and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
After yet another record year for health data breaches, updated federal security rules to protect patient information are on the table in 2025. Patients and providers have long complained that HIPAA, or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, is ill-suited to protect patients' sensitive health data in the digital age — and in January, HHS proposed updated regulations to protect against the growing threat of cyberattacks. But in thousands of public comments, health systems and providers have pushed back aggressively against the suggested changes to the security rule. Increased privacy protections, in their view, would impact the financial viability of medical practices — especially small ones — and even timely patient care.
Amazon has formed a new group within AWS dedicated to creating AI agents, systems that help people automate parts of their lives, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
British tech company Skin Analytics has received regulatory approval for an AI skin cancer detection system that uses a smartphone. Spotting skin cancer in the early stages leads to very high survival rates. The tech, known as DERM, allows a technician to photograph a patient's lesion and receive an almost instantaneous diagnosis.
Quantum computing builds on principles borrowed from quantum mechanics, leveraging “quantum bits” (qubits) to perform complex calculations more quickly than traditional computers. Applications potentially include drug discovery, cryptography and security, and AI.