Daily Briefing for October 17, 2026

Show Notes

JAMA Network plans JAMA AI journal, with AI-assisted peer review

The voices on this episode are generated, and so is the script, from the day's post at Physician in the Loop. Every fact in the post links to its source.

Read the post and its sources

Get the free email briefing

The JAMA Network will launch JAMA AI, a fully online journal on artificial intelligence and other computational tools in medicine, in early 2027, its editors announced Oct. 15 in JAMA.

Every research article submitted will receive "human-directed, AI-driven assessment and review" alongside the network's usual peer review, and human editors will make all decisions, the editors wrote. AI-related submissions to JAMA Network journals have more than doubled since 2023 and far exceed what those journals can publish, they said. The new journal, the network's 14th, will also publish studies of mobile apps, wearable sensors, digital imaging and virtual reality.

Dr. Roy H. Perlis, editor of the network's JAMA+ AI online channel since its launch in October 2024, will be the inaugural editor, and the channel will continue. The announcement does not say whether the journal will be open access.

In this episode

• JAMA Network will launch JAMA AI in early 2027, pairing human peer review with AI-driven assessment of every research paper
• FDA early alert ties burst balloons on Edwards delivery systems for the Sapien M3 mitral valve to one death and one serious injury
• 97% of health care organizations report a cyberattack in a year, and 24% trace data loss to unguarded AI agents, Proofpoint survey finds
• Sirona Medical raises $40 million for cloud radiology software and says it will onboard more than 1,000 radiologists in a year
• UMass Memorial moves its EHR to Microsoft's cloud and will add Accenture agentic AI tools across a 2,400-physician system
• Elation Health adds AI payment posting to its primary care billing tools, sending partial and denied payments to staff
• Zocdoc makes its first acquisition, buying Sohar Health, which automates insurance eligibility and benefits checks
• Opting out of health record sharing took 26 steps and a notary at one Ohio hospital, CalMatters investigation finds

What is Physician in the Loop?

How technological innovation is changing medicine for patients and the people who practice on the front lines.

Voice 1: This is Physician in the Loop, the daily briefing on AI in medicine. It's Saturday, October 17th, 2026.

Voice 1: The JAMA Network says it will launch a new journal called JAMA AI in early 2027, and every research paper it publishes will get what the editors call “human-directed, AI-driven assessment and review,” on top of the usual peer review.

Voice 2: Why now? What's pushing them to build a whole new journal around this?

Voice 1: The editors say AI-related submissions to JAMA Network journals have more than doubled since 2023, and there's now far more of that work than the existing journals can publish.

Voice 2: So who's actually going to run it?

Voice 1: Dr. Roy H. Perlis will be the inaugural editor. He's already led the network's JAMA+ AI online channel since it launched in October 2024, and that channel keeps going alongside the new journal. He's also joining the University of California, San Francisco's Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute on February 1st, 2027.

Voice 2: With AI doing the assessment, who's actually making the call on what gets published?

Voice 1: Human editors make all the decisions, according to the announcement. Reviewers get AI tools to help their evaluations, but the editors say the journal will favor work that addresses clinical care, not the technology for its own sake.

Voice 2: Open access or paywalled?

Voice 1: The announcement doesn't say.

Voice 2: The FDA had a more urgent kind of announcement this week. An early alert ties burst balloons on Edwards delivery systems for the Sapien M3 mitral valve to one death and one serious injury.

Voice 1: What's actually going wrong with the device?

Voice 2: Balloons on four lots of the Commander M delivery system may burst during inflation. Edwards reported three burst-balloon events to the agency, and on October 5th it told customers to remove those lots.

Voice 1: And what happens if a balloon bursts mid-procedure?

Voice 2: The FDA says it can cause embolism, or keep the device from being retrieved through the guide sheath, which may require further intervention, including surgery.

Voice 1: How many of these are actually out there?

Voice 2: Fewer than 200 units are affected.

Voice 1: A different kind of risk shows up in a new survey of health care security teams. Ninety seven percent of health care organizations reported a cyberattack in the past year, and 24% traced some of their data loss to AI agents that weren't being watched.

Voice 2: Did those attacks actually reach patients?

Voice 1: Seventy four percent of the 705 IT and security practitioners surveyed said attacks disrupted patient care. The costliest attack averaged $4.2 million, up from $3.9 million in last year's version of the same survey.

Voice 2: And how much control do these organizations actually have over the AI tools involved?

Voice 1: Sixty percent said they lack controls over sensitive data used in AI systems, and only 32% said they have full visibility into employees using unsanctioned AI tools.

Voice 2: Lexington Health's security chief, Rob Mireles, told Becker's he expects AI agent intrusions are, in his words, “a question of when, not if.”

Voice 1: Becker's also pointed to an outside report that OpenAI agents had probed the websites of Mayo Clinic, the CDC and others. Mayo said it has no evidence of unauthorized access.

Voice 2: A smaller, stranger story closes out today's details. Opting out of health record sharing took 26 steps and a notary at one Ohio hospital, according to a reporter who registered as a patient at 25 clinics and hospitals over a year.

Voice 1: Why does it take that much to just say no?

Voice 2: Epic's Matt Doyle told the outlet that the Care Everywhere exchange includes patients by default, and revoking access means contacting every provider that holds the records separately. Only 112 patients have chosen full undiscoverability since that option launched in August 2025.

Voice 1: And the consent forms reviewed for the story often asked patients to agree to their data being used for training, including AI training, buried in with everything else.

Voice 2: A 26-step opt-out next to a one-line consent checkbox is a strange pairing.

Voice 1: Before we go, something to watch.

Voice 2: Comments are due October 19th on the FDA's generative-AI device discussion paper, under docket FDA-2026-N-7874.

Voice 1: What's actually in the paper?

Voice 2: The sources don't say. Just the deadline and the docket number.

Voice 1: Another date worth flagging: the HIMSS AI in Healthcare Forum runs October 22nd and 23rd in San Diego.

Voice 2: What's actually on the agenda there?

Voice 1: Governance, policy and implementation, with a vendor-and-CIO view of what's being rolled out next.

Voice 2: A comment deadline that closes right before a forum full of the people the comments are about.

Voice 1: Sources and corrections are at physicianintheloop.org, where you can sign up for the free email briefing. This briefing was read by AI voices.