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Thousands of Kaiser Permanente nurses plan to strike Wednesday at several locations across Northern California, including in the Bay Area, in solidarity with mental health workers who are slated to strike the same day. The California Nurses Association said more than 23,000 of its members will participate in a one-day sympathy strike starting Wednesday at 6 a.m. and ending Thursday at 6 a.m. The nurses’ union is joining the National Union of Health Care Workers, which represents Kaiser therapists and social workers, in their strike to protest Kaiser’s use of artificial intelligence. (Ho, 3/16)

A defendant in the lawsuit brought by Epic accusing health information network Health Gorilla and several of its clients of improperly accessing patient records has admitted to fraudulently requesting patient data, according to a new legal filing released Friday. Beginning in 2024, GuardDog Telehealth — a client of Health Gorilla — improperly accessed patient records in order to provide them to law firms, while falsely asserting it was using the data to treat patients, according to the filing. (Halleman, 3/16)

UnitedHealthcare is expanding its doula benefit to employer plans nationwide, the insurance giant announced Monday. The company said in the announcement that it intends to continue expanding the reach of its Doula Support program to additional employer groups throughout this year and expects that 7.2 million members would be eligible by Jan. 1, 2027. (Minemyer, 3/16)

Health insurers that administer Medicaid have been assuring investors for multiple quarters that a recovery is just over the horizon. Companies such as Molina Healthcare, UnitedHealth Group and Elevance Health have more specifically asserted that they expect margins in this segment to bottom out this year and begin improving next year. These insurers predict states will boost payments to compensate for steadily rising medical costs. (Tepper, 3/16)

Many of the world’s most respected virologists will now have a home at the University of South Florida. Leaders and stakeholders celebrated the opening of the Global Virus Network’s international headquarters this month at the USF Health Institute for Translational Virology and Innovation. (Connor, 3/14)

Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½Ò•îl Health News: Lost In Transmission: Changes In Organ Donor Status Can Fall Through Cracks In The System

When Raven Kinser walked into a Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles office two summers ago, she completed a driver’s license application that included the option to register as an organ donor. The form provides a checkbox to opt in, but not one to opt out. Kinser left the donor registration box unchecked, reflecting her decision to reverse an earlier donor registration. Six months later, after she was declared dead at Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News, Virginia, her parents say, they learned that her decision did not prevent organ procurement. (Gounder, 3/17)