Healthcare AI newswatch: RFK Jr. for animal-saving AI, Dr. Oz’s big plans for AI at CMS, more

Buzzworthy developments of the past few days.

The Department of Health and Human Services is looking to replace lab animals with AI models. HHS head Robert Kennedy Jr. broke the news Thursday in a cabinet meeting led by President Trump and broadcast live over cable news. “Today we’re announcing a dramatic reduction in animal testing at NIH and FDA,” Kennedy said. “We’re going to switch over to AI, which we’ve now found is much more precise in identifying the impact of toxins in various products.” While he was at it, Kennedy added that HHS is working closely with Elon Musk, “who has done an incredible job to eliminate the redundancies and to streamline operations at all health agencies, and to recalibrate our trajectory to your [President Trump’s] agenda of making America healthy again.” In the official HHS announcement, FDA Commissioner Martin Makary, MD, MPH, says that, for patients, the AI move means “a more efficient pipeline for novel treatments.” And for animal welfare, it means that “thousands of animals, including dogs and primates, could eventually be spared each year as these new methods take root.”
Even more bullish on AI is the new boss at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Someone who attended the first all-staff meeting led by new CMS administrator Mehmet Oz, MD, leaked word about the proceedings to Wired. Dr. Oz spent much of the April 7 huddle “promoting the use of artificial intelligence at the agency,” according to the source. That was when Oz wasn’t busy “praising” RFK Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again initiative. “Oz claimed that, if a patient went to a doctor for a diabetes diagnosis, it would cost $100 per hour, while an appointment with an AI avatar would cost considerably less, at just $2 an hour,” Wired reports. “Oz also claimed that patients have rated the care they’ve received from an AI avatar as equal to or better than a human doctor.”
Elsewhere in the executive branch, the Office of Management and Budget is encouraging healthy rivalries among AI vendors. Competition in the AI marketplace “enables the government to acquire the best solutions at lower cost to the taxpayer,” OMB director Russell Vought, JD, reminds heads of executive-level departments and agencies in a memo. “As agencies seek to accelerate the adoption of AI-enabled services, they must pay careful attention to vendor sourcing, data portability and long-term interoperability to avoid significant and costly dependencies on a single vendor.” The Federal News Network has additional coverage.
Over in the U.S. Senate, legislation has been introduced to juice the use of medical AI for older patients. Senators Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), co-chairs of the Senate AI Caucus, wrote the bill and are leading the charge. Their Health Tech Investment Act would ensure reimbursement for providers who use AI-equipped devices to treat Medicare patients. These Americans “deserve access to the life-changing care that AI-enabled devices can offer,” Rounds says in written remarks. “There is currently no clear Medicare payment system for these devices, meaning that it can take years to be approved and paid out by Medicare accurately. This legislation would create that system, improving diagnoses and encouraging the adoption of AI devices in clinical settings.” The medical device trade association AdvaMed is all for it.
In one year, doctors at the largest physician-led medical group in the U.S. used ambient AI 2.5 million times. In doing so, they saved themselves 16,000 hours in documentation time. The health system is The Permanente Medical Group in Northern California. Surveying the physician population after the period, the group found almost 90% of respondents had a positive experience with the technology. Along with the time savings, many liked the scribe’s prowess for helping them recall details of conversations with patients. Kaiser surveyed patients too. Here they found nearly half, 47%, thought their doctor spent less time than usual looking at a computer screen. Two-thirds said they were comfortable with the technology being used, 26% were neutral, and a scant 8% said they had some level of discomfort with it. “We have now shown that this technology alleviates workloads for doctors,” researcher Vincent Liu, MD, MSc, the group’s chief data officer, remarks. “Both doctors and patients highly value face-to-face contact during a visit, and the AI scribe supports that.”
Also delighted with GenAI are two major provider organizations separated by a few hundred miles but united over their choice of technology supplier. Highmark Health of Pittsburgh and Hackensack Meridian Health outside New York City testified to their satisfaction April 9. They were brought together for a press briefing organized by their in-common AI vendor, Google Cloud. Both health systems are using Google’s generative AI offerings for multiple uses. And both have an eye on eventually deploying autonomous AI agents to handle patient journeys from start to finish. But they’re not getting ahead of themselves. Commenting on ambient AI scribe technology, Highmark’s chief data and analytics officer, Richard Clarke, PhD, said he’s found it “a true gift to bring joy back to practice for many of our clinicians.” For his part, Sameer Sethi, chief AI officer at Hackensack Meridian, says the hardest part of the AI journey has been figuring out “what can and should be automated. That’s what slows us down.” Hat tip for nice coverage of the briefing by PYMNTS.
Here’s a health system doing great things with a homegrown AI model that isn’t generative. UC-Davis researchers are seeing good results with their algorithmic baby, which they’ve named BE-FAIR. (That stands for Bias-reduction and Equity Framework for Assessing, Implementing and Redesigning.) The model helps predict patient needs at the subpopulation level, zeroing in on those who may need immediate care. One goal of the technique is to help at-risk patient subgroups avoid hospitalization. Many existing population-health AI technologies are “generic,” explains Reshma Gupta, MD, chief of population health and accountable care. Such models “can overlook groups within patient populations, exacerbating health disparities among those communities.” Journal article here, UC-Davis news item here.
If you just can’t get enough surveys, here’s another good one. Polling 105 healthcare professionals across 73 U.S. organizations, the healthtech company Innovaccer found 82% of physicians and 79% of administrators are “eager to adopt AI tools, driven by rising workforce shortages, burnout and growing administrative inefficiencies.” Find more highlights plus a link to download the full survey report here.
Recent research in the news:
- Tel Aviv University: AI diagnoses slightly more accurate than those of human physicians
- Tulane University: Researchers use AI to improve diagnosis of drug-resistant infections
- University College London: AI tool can track effectiveness of multiple sclerosis treatments
- Florida Atlantic University: Engineers bring sign language to ‘life’ using AI
- American Chemical Society and Cleveland Clinic to accelerate research through advanced AI and quantum computing
Funding news of note:
From AIin.Healthcare’s news partners:
- Health Imaging: AI ups breast cancer detection post-mastectomy
- Radiology Business: Members of Congress propose faster Medicare payment pathway for imaging AI
- Health Imaging: Not all radiologists are buying what AI is selling, even when the technology outperforms humans

Dave P. has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for more than 30 years, frequently concentrating on hospitals, healthcare technology and Catholic communications. He has also specialized in fundraising communications, ghostwriting for CEOs of local, national and global charities, nonprofits and foundations.

Healthcare AI newswatch: RFK Jr. for animal-saving AI, Dr. Oz’s big plans for AI at CMS, more

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