Patient portals are intended to empower patients through access to their own health information, but complex medical terminology can be a barrier, write nursing professors Sarah Ailey and Holy Brown. Plain language, visual aids and hyperlinks to reputable resources in patient portal records can help patients understand their own health data, Ailey and Brown write.

Large language models had varying levels of accuracy and completeness when answering menopause-related questions, according to a study presented at the Menopause Society's annual meeting. ChatGPT versions 3.5 and 4.0 had the highest accuracy, with scores of 70% and 67% respectively, Gemini was the most complete with patient questions at 100%, and clinician-focused Open Evidence was 86% accurate. However, the chatbots were less accurate answering treatment-related questions than symptom-related ones, and some answers were difficult or very difficult to understand, highlighting challenges in providing reliable health information.

Clinicians should ask patients about their use of AI chatbots as part of routine health interviews and mental health screenings, according to a guide developed by Brainstorm: The Stanford Lab for Mental Health Innovation. Chatbots can offer companionship and support, as evidenced by studies showing their effectiveness in preventing suicide among college students, but they also pose risks such as fostering overdependence and providing misleading health information.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has introduced a mobile app that works offline to help home care teams serving veterans in rural and remote areas. Using Oracle Health's Community Care technology, the app provides access to patient information in a read-only format, and 97% of transactions were completed in less than two seconds in testing. Facilities that have implemented the VA's new EHR system are using the app.

AI has yielded a return on investment in claim denial prevention and appeals by identifying gaps in documentation and reducing the cost of appeals. AI has changed how Beth Israel Lahey Health has approached coding and documentation, says Vice President of Mid-Revenue Cycle Keisha Downes. Moffitt Cancer Center has collected $500,000 that would otherwise have been written off since adopting AI to appeal low-dollar claims, says Director of Business Operational Transformation Bill Arneson. Downes and Arneson both say that organizations adopting AI should start small, focus on culture and upskill staff.

Mayo Clinic is piloting a platform developed by a startup named Corvus designed to streamline the surgical referral process. The platform automates tasks such as prior authorization, out-of-pocket estimates and document retrieval, and it leverages AI to determine patient eligibility for surgery. Mayo Clinic will test the platform in high-volume specialties including orthopedic, spinal, bariatric and general surgery.

Fall technology has advanced from the detection and alert systems of the 1980s to sophisticated systems with sensors, cameras and analytics that predict an impending fall and send alerts to caregivers in real time. Falls declined by 40% at a senior living facility in New York City that installed the technology. However, privacy is an issue.

About 100 male veterans are diagnosed with breast cancer each year, but the Department of Veterans Affairs will no longer presume that those cases are service-related, making it more difficult for male veterans to receive breast cancer care. The change, based on a Trump administration order to restore "biological truth" to federal policy, reverses a policy that expanded benefits under the PACT Act.