Called the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), the system is meant to be interoperable between AI platforms, payment systems and vendors.

Researchers and health care institutions have increasingly applied structured futures methods—such as the futures wheel, scenario analysis, forecasting, and horizon scanning—to systematically explore, generate, and prepare for multiple possible futures. However, discussions around the future of medicine, specialties, or therapeutic areas have often relied on the subjective opinions or perspectives of key opinion leaders rather than on future strategies, policies, visions, and scenarios that are grounded in rigorous and established methods. This underscores the need for futures methods to be widely adopted and effectively incorporated into both medical practice and health care policymaking. Integrating structured foresight techniques into strategic planning enables clinicians and policymakers to transition from reactive decision-making to proactive, plausible approaches that shape a more resilient and adaptive health care system. Our goal with this paper is to provide a methodological guide that is supported by case studies, demonstrating how futures methods can be systematically applied in health care. By offering practical examples, we intend to empower medical professionals, health care leaders, researchers, patients, and policymakers with the tools to anticipate and navigate future challenges and opportunities more effectively.

Nature, Published online: 15 September 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-02940-w

Developers of griefbots say that they help people by allowing them to commune with recreations of the dead, but others say that the technology is fraught with danger.

Background: Even though Digital Health Technology (DHT) is widely utilized in the United States (U.S.) at both hospital provider and individual levels, it is beset with several challenges that have contributed to inequities in the health service delivery. Previous studies have shown that health inequities observed may be amplified many by DHT requirements. Objective: The objectives of this scoping review are aimed at synthesizing information on DHT inequities by exploring evidence that describes DHT infrastructure needs focused on promoting health equity in the U.S. and identifying key challenges at both the individual/patient level and at the health service provider's level. Methods: We adapted Arksey and O'Malley's scoping review guidelines in our review. We searched PubMed, Web of Science, CINAHL, and PsycINFO were searched. We also conducted supplementary searches on Google Scholar. The inclusion criteria were peer-reviewed publications that broadly conceptualize or analyze DHT infrastructure from a health equity perspective and the challenges of DHT requirements between 2020 and 2024. Following a full-text screening using eligibility criteria such as studies were included if they examined DHT infrastructure in the U.S. from a health equity perspective, discussed health disparities resulting from DHT interventions, or investigated the variables influencing health inequities connected to DHT. Two researchers evaluated each citation’s individually at the title and abstract levels. Thematic approach and qualitative analysis determined this scoping review’s outcome. Results: Of the 628 research articles from the search, 27 were included in the analysis based on the inclusion criteria. In this review, we discussed factors such as elderly population, education, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status leading to health inequities in DHT. Patients and Service providers challenges that exist in health inequities related to DHT. The most common challenges for service providers were infrastructure and technical issues such as inadequate integration with existing workflows, user-unfriendly health information exchange (HIE) interfaces, and lack of skilled staff, while for individuals or patients, this included limited broadband internet access, cultural or linguistic appropriateness, and access to digital tools. Conclusions: The study identified that in the U.S., DHT is an essential part of the delivery of health services, yet it is saddled with key challenges leading to health inequities. Finding pragmatic solutions to these challenges can improve health equity in DHT.

Large language models (LLMs), such as OpenAI’s GPT series and Google’s PaLM, are transforming healthcare by improving clinical decision-making, enhancing patient communication, and simplifying administrative tasks. However, their performance relies heavily on prompt design, where small changes in wording or structure can greatly impact output quality. This poses a challenge for clinicians who are not experts in natural language processing (NLP). This tutorial combines prompt engineering techniques tailored for clinical use, covering methods like zero-shot, few-shot, chain-of-thought, and meta-prompting. We examine four critical dimensions (accuracy, bias mitigation, privacy protection, and workflow integration) through clinical case studies grounded in real-world practice. We provide actionable guidance on defining objectives, applying core principles, iteratively refining prompts, and integrating them into interoperable electronic health record (EHR) systems. This framework helps clinicians leverage LLMs to improve decision-making, streamline documentation, and enhance patient communication while maintaining ethical standards and ensuring patient safety.

Hugging Face has unveiled FinePDFs, the largest publicly available corpus built entirely from PDFs. The dataset spans 475 million documents in 1,733 languages, totaling roughly 3 trillion tokens. At 3.65 terabytes in size, FinePDFs introduces a new dimension to open training datasets by tapping into a resource long considered too complex and expensive to process.

By Robert Krzaczyński

Does Silicon Valley still give founders an edge? At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, Anh-Tho Chuong (Lago), David Hall (Revolution), and Tawni Nazario-Cranz (SignalFire) debate whether location still drives startup success.

(MedPage Today) -- The jury is still out on the merits of multicancer detection (MCD) tests in asymptomatic adults, according to results from a systematic review. Across 20 studies reporting on the accuracy of 19 tests, test sensitivity ranged...

Nature Medicine, Published online: 15 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41591-025-03965-4

A brief, self-administered digital cognitive test, in combination with a blood test, accurately detects clinical Alzheimer’s disease in primary care.

(MedPage Today) -- I took our new puppy Archie out for a walk to get him used to the New York City streets -- the sights, the sounds, the smells -- and it seemed like everyone wanted to stop and say hello to him. Everyone loves a puppy. We...

Nature Biotechnology, Published online: 15 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41587-025-02826-2

US government slams mRNA vaccine research