Digital Health Weekly - 13 - 17 Apr, 2026

• More than a quarter of young Australians are using AI for mental health support, driven by cost pressures, according to a survey of over 2,300 young people in New South Wales.
• The survey reveals a stark contrast between the number of young people using AI for mental health support and the availability of affordable services, with only 12% utilizing treatments, compared to 65% of those surveyed.
• A notable trend is the widespread use of AI for studying and homework, with nearly half of respondents reporting using chatbots daily, demonstrating a reliance on technology for support.
• The recent social media ban has had a limited impact on young people’s usage, with 83% reporting no change in their social media habits, but a significant portion (60%) still using restricted sites.

• Mario Schlosser, CTO of Oscar Health, claimed AI is “the only way” to cut US doctor visit costs, and a 2024 McKinsey report projected up to $360 billion in annual savings. 
• Hospital administrators and insurers now report that AI “scribes” that transcribe visits are inflationary, raising overall healthcare costs. 
• AI scribes increase billing by documenting more detail, prompting higher visit complexity codes and nudging clinicians to add extra diagnoses, as noted by FMOL Health CMO Bobby DuPre. 
• The efficiency gains from AI scribes led FMOL clinicians to see 22 % more patients, boosting revenue but not reducing patient expenses.

• Cera, a digital‑first home healthcare firm, has launched an AI lab backed by an eight‑figure investment to develop tools that address global care capacity and workforce shortages. 
• The lab will leverage anonymised data from millions of monthly home‑care visits to create and test AI solutions, initially targeting patient deterioration prediction, workforce capacity improvement, and assistive home technologies. 
• Proven tools will be licensed internationally to help healthcare providers sustain systems and reduce hospital pressure, building on Cera’s existing predictive algorithms and workforce‑support tools. 
• The initiative brings together entrepreneurs, data scientists, and clinicians, and is supported by the UK’s Minister for AI, Kanishka Narayan, aiming to create a scalable blueprint for worldwide healthcare transformation. 

• The French Open (Roland‑Garros) will allow players to use connected devices and wearables to collect biometric data during the 2026 tournament, marking a first for Grand Slam tennis. 
• Players will be able to track metrics such as heart rate, heart rate variability, sleep quality, recovery status, and physical strain using devices listed on the World Tennis‑approved “Player Analysis Tennis” register. 
• The trial program, announced by Roland‑Garros tournament director Amélie Mauresmo, will extend to Wimbledon and the US Open later in 2026, with Tennis Australia also considering allowing wearables in future editions. 
• The decision represents a significant shift in Grand Slam policy, with supporters arguing that biometric data helps players optimise performance, prevent injury, and make smarter training decisions without providing a competitive advantage during actual play. 

• Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, and the University of Gothenburg have created a contactless breathing‑monitoring method using small RFID‑like tags and radio‑frequency technology. 
• Proof‑of‑concept tests on a mannequin showed the system can detect subtle differences in chest‑wall movement, delivering detailed respiratory data without batteries, cables, or radiation exposure. 
• The portable, low‑cost approach aims to enable personalized rehabilitation and continuous home monitoring for patients with chronic pulmonary disease or post‑surgical recovery. 
• The team plans to develop a dedicated prototype and begin clinical trials within five years, potentially expanding access to respiratory monitoring across diverse care settings. 

• Max Hodak’s Science Corp is preparing to implant its first brain sensor in a human, marking a major milestone in brain–computer interface development.
• The company is focusing initially on vision restoration, aiming to help people with severe visual impairments by directly stimulating the brain.
• Unlike competitors such as Neuralink, Science Corp is taking a more targeted, less invasive approach centered on specific neurological functions rather than broad brain interaction.
• The move signals growing momentum in the neurotech space, where multiple companies are racing to bring human trials and real-world medical applications to market.

• Speechmatics and thymia have partnered to merge medical‑grade speech‑to‑text with clinical‑grade voice biomarker analysis, enabling detection of health signals such as stress, fatigue, depression, anxiety, type‑2 diabetes and driver impairment. 
• Their platform extracts more than 30 clinical biomarkers from just 15 seconds of natural speech with over 85% accuracy, delivering results alongside transcription via a single integration and no extra hardware. 
• The technology is built on a dataset of 75,000+ unique voices, validated in 20+ peer‑reviewed studies (including Nature Scientific Reports), and is seeking medical‑device regulatory approval while already used in safety‑critical sectors. 
• The joint solution will be launched at THE VOICE AI HACK hackathon, coinciding with a projected $5 billion voice‑biomarker market by 2028 and an EU mandate for driver‑fatigue monitoring in new vehicles by July 2026.

• APA Labs, a unit of APA Services, launched the Digital Badge Solutions Library in Washington to list digital mental‑health tools that have earned its APA Labs Digital Badge. 
• The badge program, created with ORCHA, independently evaluates technologies against proprietary criteria for regulation, safety, data privacy, usability and accessibility. 
• Early adopters such as Calm (Chief Clinical Officer Chris Mosunic) and Arcade Therapeutics’ StarStarter for Anxiety (CEO Raj Amin) received the badge, giving clinicians confidence in recommending these apps. 
• The searchable library aims to help clinicians, health systems, payers and the public integrate vetted digital mental‑health solutions as the market expands.