“I like to think of it as a living system. Just enough stability to keep it from collapsing into anarchy.” We don’t know if that’s what President Trump said to Border Czar Tom Homan before dispatching him to address the chaos in Minnesota after federal ICE agents fatally shot two Americans this month. This is a line from Lowrey Cruthers, the control room technician character in the 2015 movie Jurassic World, as he describes why his desk is full of plastic dinosaur figurines that would eat each other if they were real. This terrible movie comes to mind because – like Lowrey Cruthers – we are all in a proverbial control room, doing our relatively mundane jobs, while eye-popping chaos ensues on the screen in front of us. This is the theme of the health policy topic discussed below in the One Thoughtful Paragraph.
What counts as “mundane” in the news this week:
- A group of 63 health systems sent a letter to The Sequoia Project, the recognized coordinating entity (RCE) of the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), urging it to implement stronger oversight mechanisms to prevent bad actors from improperly leveraging health data exchange networks to access patient information. Echoing concerns from Epic‘s recent lawsuit against Health Gorilla, the health systems called for changes like hiring staff to independently vet new network participants and create a “digital health fraud task force” comprised of federal agency representatives and state attorneys general. Health Gorilla released a statement denying allegations in Epic’s complaint.
- Healthier Capital, a venture capital firm founded by former One Medical CEO Amir Dan Rubin, raised $220 million for its first health technology fund focused on early-stage AI-driven diagnostics, care delivery, and clinical workflow platforms.
- Bessemer Venture Partners published the State of Health AI 2026 analysis, finding health AI has reached a breakthrough point — not another bubble. The analysis distinguishes Health Tech 2.0 companies (2024-2025 IPOs) from their predecessors by business fundamentals, surges in M&A activity, and AI’s dominance in health tech (55% of all health tech funding in 2025). One key prediction for 2026: CMS will launch clinical AI payment code experiments, requiring founders to closely track and leverage regulatory pilot programs.
“The key to a happy life is to accept you are never actually in control.” This is what the owner of the fictional and uncontrolled Jurassic World theme park says in the film. If it weren’t embarrassing to quote such a bad movie, I’d have this engraved on a plaque and hang it above my desk. While our proverbial “Indominus rex” breaks out of its cage, we regular people are recognizing that we need to try to control things a bit. That’s why, in the midst of other chaos, the FDA plans to host a town hall about its new guidance for low-risk, general wellness devices on February 11, 2026. That’s why several academic scholars are suggesting how to regulate clinical AI systems that is different than FDA’s usual SaMD framework in a new JAMA article. And that is why DiMe is holding a webinar on February 4, 2026, to introduce the sensor-based Digital Health Technologies (sDHT) Adoption Navigator, an FDA-funded, open-access tool to show clinical trial teams and developers how to navigate regulatory and organizational barriers in sDHT medical product development. Kudos to everyone for trying to keep their heads above water while the scary things are happening. It is like the hero (the not-hard-to-look-at actor Chris Pratt) says in the film when asked what everyone should do next: “Probably stick together. For survival.”
