IHA Daily Briefing: September 10

REGISTER: 2026 IHA Emergency Preparedness Exercise on AI-Enabled Cyberattacks
Artificial intelligence now powers one in four data breaches, accelerating digital threats past human speed. Because hospitals remain primary targets, leadership teams must know how to respond when an attack compromises the entire organization.

Join healthcare executives and operational leaders statewide for the immersive crisis simulation, "Broken Trust: AI Takes Control." This interactive webinar on Nov. 4 from 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. CT will address:

• Effectively coordinating a multidisciplinary response;
• The capacity to maintain safe patient care and essential healthcare operations;
• Processes for detecting, validating, escalating, and responding to AI-enabled threats; and
• Organizational readiness to verify information, establish trusted sources, and make timely operational decisions.

Working together, leaders and staff will be immersed in an evolving scenario designed to evaluate and strengthen decision-making, cyber resilience, continuity strategies, communications pathways, and workforce stability.

IHA is maintaining reduced registration fees to ensure all members can participate in this critical training. See our flyer for more information. Register today.

Staff contact: Keneatha Johnson

FBI Alert: Cyber Actors Deceiving Individuals Through 'OAuth Consent Phishing'
A recent FBI alert warns malicious cyber actors are impersonating government officials, media representatives and other public figures through commercial messaging applications to target victims by sending malicious links. These links use a technique known as "OAuth consent phishing." OAuth consent phishing typically begins when a user clicks a link in a phishing email or direct message that redirects them to a legitimate service provider's permission request page. If the user approves the request, they may unknowingly grant a malicious application controlled by the threat actor broad access to their account. With this access, the cyber actor can perform actions on the user's behalf, such as reading and sending emails or accessing sensitive information, without ever obtaining the user's credentials.

Report Highlights Decline in Availability of Hospital Obstetric Services
A recent University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center report on hospital obstetric services found that between 2010-2024, 718 hospitals nationwide lost obstetric services due to obstetric unit or hospital closure. Nine percent of those losses happened from 2023-2024, with 57.5% of rural hospitals and 43.6% of urban hospitals across the U.S. without obstetric services by 2024.

The report stated that loss of obstetric services disproportionately impacts rural areas, noting that between 2010-2024, 14% of hospitals, including 16% of rural hospitals and 13% of urban hospitals lost obstetric services, while 35%, including 42% rural and 30% urban, never had obstetric services during that period. By 2024, more than half of the rural hospitals in more the 31 states, including Illinois, were without obstetric services.

AMA Releases CPT 2027 Code Set
The American Medical Association (AMA) yesterday released the Current Procedural Terminology (CPT®) 2027 code set, which includes 299 new codes that AMA said reflects advancements in contemporary clinical practice, science and technology, helping ensure the CPT code set fulfills its vital role as a uniform language of medicine. Key updates in the CPT 2027 code set, which go into effect on Jan. 1, include significant updates to maternity care, ventricular assist device procedures, hernia repair, prostate biopsy, biofeedback, radiology and sleep medicine. AMA said the CPT 2027 code set continues to expand to better describe artificial intelligence-related services that support or assist healthcare professionals. Click here for more information on the new CPT 2027 code set.

Illinois Respiratory Disease Surveillance Data

The Infectious Respiratory Disease Surveillance Dashboard from the Illinois Dept. of Public Health (IDPH) provides the latest data on hospital visits, seasonal trends, lab test positivity and demographic data. IDPH also tracks COVID-19, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus information through the Illinois Wastewater Surveillance System dashboard.

Briefly Noted

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency today released the Illinois Comprehensive Climate Action Plan (CCAP). Analysis in the CCAP found that Illinois has reduced planet-warming greenhouse gas pollution by 32% since 2005, but more action will be needed to meet the state's goal of net zero emissions by 2050. The plan models a set of policies that, if adopted by the General Assembly, would reduce emissions in the state by 72% from 2005 levels by 2050 and finds that implementing these policies would produce $21 billion per year in net benefits by 2050.

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