This week on Pulse: Hot Topics, Louise and George tackle big shifts in medicines safety and the accelerating global AI race in healthcare.

Australia moves toward a National Medicines Record

The Federal Government announces reforms requiring medicines prescribed via online platforms to be uploaded to My Health Record — including clinical context. With medication-related harm accounting for around 250,000 hospital admissions annually, is this the safety infrastructure Australia has needed for decades?

AI predicts 130 diseases from one night of sleep

A new Nature Medicine study claims a sleep foundation model trained on 585,000 hours of data can predict future risk of more than 130 diseases. Breakthrough preventative medicine — or promising science with important caveats.

China’s AI healthcare surge

China’s Ant Group health chatbot reaches 30 million monthly users, embedded inside Alipay’s super-app ecosystem. Meanwhile, China announces a $2–3 billion national AI healthcare strategy targeting population-scale deployment by 2030. Are we witnessing two divergent AI healthcare futures — cautious and regulated versus centralised and scaled?

We are on tour!

Charlotte Blease of #DrBot book fame and Louise are hitting the road together. Come see them in person and get your booked signed by Charlotte!

Sydney: Tuesday 3rd March 6pm, Gleebooks, Glebe. Get tickets here

Melbourne: Tuesday 10th March 6.30pm, Mary Martin Bookshop, Southbank. Get tickets here

Resources

Dr Sara Riggare’s Checklist and Resources for Meaningful Engagement of Patients Link

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