December 23, 2025: The AI revolution swept through healthcare in 2025, but did it deliver on its promises? Bill Russell, Drex DeFord, and Sarah Richardson pull back the curtain on what really happened in AI this year—from North Korean deep fakes infiltrating hospital workforces to the sobering reality of billion-dollar AI investments with ROI timelines stretching to 2030. They reveal why ambient listening became the breakout use case, which organizations are actually making progress, and the critical mistake most health systems are making with endless pilots. If you're wondering whether your organization is behind on AI or just getting started right, this honest end-of-year reflection delivers the answers healthcare leaders need heading into 2026.

Key Points:

• 02:38 2025 Reflections and Predictions
• 11:21 Deep Fakes and Digital Trafficking in Healthcare
• 17:50 Balancing Tech Debt and Innovation in Healthcare
• 19:22 Enhancing Physician Efficiency and Satisfaction
• 25:09 Future AI Trends 

X: This Week Health

LinkedIn: This Week Health

Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

December 19, 2025: CMS has unveiled its new ACCESS Model—an ambitious 10-year initiative aimed at expanding digital, tech-enabled care for millions of Medicare beneficiaries. In this discussion, Laura O’Toole, CEO of SureTest, joins Bill and Sarah to unpack how outcome-based reimbursement could finally accelerate innovation in remote monitoring and chronic disease management. They explore what this shift means for CIOs, including the need for stronger data interoperability, integrated analytics, and secure pipelines to support continuous digital care. The conversation also highlights risks, from digital literacy gaps to patient privacy concerns as de-identified data gains value across the industry. From wearables and home health devices to the challenge of building a true digital front door, this episode examines how ACCESS could reshape care-in-place models—and why commercial payers may soon follow Medicare’s lead.

X: This Week Health

LinkedIn: This Week Health

Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

From crippling outages to AI-powered deepfakes, 2025 tested healthcare cybersecurity like never before. This year-end recap explores the moments that mattered most: how teams built resilience during system failures, why users became partners instead of "weak links," how identity became the new perimeter, and what it means when you can't trust your own eyes. Through powerful stories from the front lines, we revisit the lessons learned and the community that kept us standing. Because at the end of the day, cybersecurity is patient safety, and the work you do saves lives.

A critical vulnerability called React to Shell exposed tens of thousands of systems worldwide, triggering immediate exploitation by threat actors—including China-nexus groups—within minutes of disclosure. Drex breaks down how this flaw turns innocent web requests into remote access backdoors, why CloudFlare's emergency response accidentally caused widespread outages, and what this high-stakes race teaches us about rapid response patching in healthcare. When attackers move at internet speed, your playbook needs to be faster than your Slack discussion.

Remember, Stay a Little Paranoid 

X: This Week Health 

LinkedIn: This Week Health 

Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer 

December 15, 2025: What if healthcare's biggest breakthroughs require throwing out the playbook? Joined by Daniel Schubert, CEO and Co-Founder of Revuud, this episode explores how AI is fundamentally reshaping healthcare IT strategy, from deploying countless virtual PhD-level agents across operations to rethinking patient access and workflow automation. Healthcare leaders discuss the challenge of prioritizing AI initiatives amid competing demands, the importance of creating organizational margin for creative problem-solving, and why divergent thinking beats linear logic in digital transformation. The conversation tackles talent deployment, the dangers of "we've always done it this way" mentality, and a critical question every CIO must answer: how resilient are your systems when AI becomes mission-critical infrastructure?

Key Points:

• 01:40 AI in Healthcare: A LinkedIn Post Discussion
• 04:18 Challenges and Opportunities with AI
• 08:38 Future of AI in Healthcare
• 10:55 Organizational Impact and Talent Management
• 20:05 Resilience and Final Thoughts

X: This Week Health

LinkedIn: This Week Health

Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

December 12, 2025: When cloud platforms like AWS and Azure experience outages, hospitals across the country feel the impact. But are healthcare organizations truly prepared for these disruptions? Charles Knight, Founder of EHC Consulting, explores the critical gaps in healthcare's cloud resilience strategies. From understanding single points of failure to running actual failover tests, this conversation reveals why documentation and operational readiness matter just as much as technical redundancy.

Key Points:

• 04:09 Challenges in Disaster Recovery and Documentation
• 16:14 Phishing and Cybersecurity Concerns
• 21:30 Thanksgiving Food Favorites

X: This Week Health

LinkedIn: This Week Health

Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

December 10, 2025: Valley Medical Center's CIO and SVP, Brian Jones, faced a critical challenge: transform aging infrastructure while enabling his team to focus on data-driven healthcare delivery. In this candid conversation with Drex DeFord and Rackspace's Global Senior Client Executive, Jason Jones, Brian reveals how he disrupted the status quo through a bold partnership that reduced costs by 30%, eliminated unplanned downtime, and freed his team to innovate. Discover how Valley Medical achieved a complete infrastructure transformation in under 12 months, secured a decade of predictable costs, and empowered staff who initially resisted change to become champions of the new model. This is infrastructure reimagined for modern healthcare.

Key Points:

• 05:55 Reimagining Healthcare IT
• 10:06 Leadership and Empowerment
• 16:48 Measuring Success
• 19:03 Building a Business Case
• 28:19 Advice for Innovation and Transformation
• 31:43 Final Thoughts and Human Element

X: This Week Health

LinkedIn: This Week Health

Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

December 8, 2025: Healthcare systems are drowning in administrative calls while patients struggle with fragmented portals and coordination nightmares. Will Akers, Chief Strategy Officer from Switchboard, MD, joins Bill Russell, Sarah Richardson, and Drex DeFord to unpack a stunning reality: 25-40% of health system calls are simple scheduling requests that could be automated today. Drawing from his experience having children in both Hong Kong and the US healthcare systems, Will reveals stark efficiency gaps costing patients time and money. The conversation explores why seniors spend three weeks yearly on healthcare logistics, how multiple portals create care coordination chaos, and practical automation strategies that could transform contact centers while improving patient access for vulnerable populations.

Key Points:

• 02:06 Healthcare Experiences Abroad vs. US
• 09:55 Technology in Healthcare Communication
• 16:44 Patient-Centric Healthcare Solutions
• 22:52 Thanksgiving Traditions 

X: This Week Health

LinkedIn: This Week Health

Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer

Drex DeFord explores what he calls the "trust recession"—a era where deepfakes, AI-generated content, and sophisticated social engineering have made it nearly impossible to distinguish real from fake. From synthetic customer service agents to North Korean operatives using AI to pass job interviews at US health systems, the threat landscape has fundamentally shifted. DeFord shares practical strategies for healthcare professionals to protect themselves during the holiday season when cyber criminals are most active, including how to validate information, verify identities, and trust your instincts when something feels off.

Remember, Stay a Little Paranoid 

X: This Week Health 

LinkedIn: This Week Health 

Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer 

December 3, 2025: When Will Houston, Network Security Manager at MDI Hospital, received security alerts at 5 AM on a holiday, he faced every healthcare leader's nightmare. But this story gets personal: among the 32,000 breach notifications he later sent were letters to his wife and two children. Join as Will sits down with Fortified Health Security’s Spencer Bales, VP of Product, and Preston Duren, VP of Threat Services,  to explore how a small hospital in Bar Harbor, Maine, shut down 170 compromised accounts before breakfast, managed a crisis spanning weeks, and learned why healthcare-focused cybersecurity partnerships aren't just about technology—they're about protecting real people in your community.

Key Points:

• 04:45 Will’s Cyber Journey and the terrible summer
• 13:24 Fortified's Central Command Platform
• 16:20 The SOS Button and Work-Life Balance
• 20:36 Incident Response and Escalation IQ
• 28:51 Healthcare Focus and Mission
• 32:40 Advice for Small Teams

X: This Week Health

LinkedIn: This Week Health

Donate: Alex’s Lemonade Stand: Foundation for Childhood Cancer