Health and Human Services

A new two-year program at a community college in Vancouver will train surgical technologists, who prepare equipment for medical procedures. The college also hopes to build partnerships with local health care providers.

In response to students hiding vape pens, a school district in Pennsylvania is considering allowing staff to use handheld security devices to scan students suspected of hiding contraband.

Data privacy remains a primary concern for government agencies adding artificial intelligence into the fidelity monitoring process, but the impact for employees — and the people they serve — can be substantial.

This comes at a time when getting a vet appointment can be a lengthy process due to a shortage of veterinary services nationwide, the retirement of older veterinarians, high turnover and increased demand.

The district is using data and technology to transform how it connects people experiencing homelessness to shelters with beds during hypothermia season. Calls to a key service hotline have dropped significantly as a result.

A bill from state Sen. Tom Umberg seeks to ensure companies collecting such information use it only for the purpose for which it was collected. Once that is done, the data must also be deleted.

A freshman from Onalaska High School won her area's Congressional App Challenge with a tool that finds local health care providers based on the user's needs, such as distance, cost and type of care.

About 70 staffers at the federal digital consulting office within Technology Transformation Services were reportedly dismissed over the weekend. Its work has included the site login.gov, a single logon to popular federal sites.

Using student population data on factors like age, sex, years in school, race and ethnicity, researchers used artificial intelligence to help counselors understand which groups might benefit from additional resources.

A January data breach at Middletown, Conn.-based Community Health Center Inc. may have exposed medical records and Social Security numbers of more than 1 million residents there and in several other states.

Diabetic students often have glucose monitors connected to phone apps that sound an alarm when they detect a problem, but some parents are concerned that teachers and other staff don't check or hear them.

A former student of Ector County Independent School District won his local Congressional App Challenge with an app that uses questionnaires to assess mental health conditions, then shares resources related to the results.

Minnesota’s governor wants to crack down on Medicaid fraud with the help of artificial intelligence. The idea comes at a time when much of the country is struggling to convict and recover money from Medicaid scammers.

Ohio is investing $83 million on a project to modernize its 20-year-old unemployment system. The new solution promises to provide improved user and employee experiences as well as better fraud prevention.

The state Attorney General’s office sued Change Healthcare and two co-defendants over the alleged exposure of financial account details and protected health information of at least 575,000 Nebraskans.

The incident Dec. 1 downed computer and most phone systems at two hospitals in southeast Los Angeles County, and one in Los Angeles. Urgent care centers, doctors’ offices, and a home health and hospice agency were also compromised.

Students from Gustavus Adolphus College and St. Peter High School in Minnesota hosted a program through Project 4 Teens in which they talked to middle schoolers about social media, phone usage and other topics.

The health payment processing company, one of the largest in the world, was hit in February by a ransomware attack that is considered to be the largest health-care data breach in history. Medical billing services have now been restored.