Smartwatch AI spots more hypertension than an office cuff check

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A Google artificial intelligence model reading consumer smartwatch sensors detected 65.8% of hypertension cases over seven days, versus 55.3% for an initial office blood pressure check, in a 196-person study published Thursday in Nature.

Both approaches had 90.0% specificity against 24-hour ambulatory monitoring, and the watch model needed no cuff calibration, the authors reported. Separately, a JAMA study of 5.2 million newborns found that the share not given vitamin K at birth more than doubled from 2017 to 2025, Wisconsin reported its first measles death since 1990, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services proposed dropping obstetric and emergency readiness training rules for hospitals.

In AI evidence, a 400-person randomized trial in JAMA Network Open found a generative AI maternal health chatbot did not improve anxiety or depression at 12 months, and Mayo Clinic Platform opened a clinical AI chatbot covering more than 35 specialties to Mayo clinicians and outside organizations in its programs.

In this episode

• Google's smartwatch AI catches 65.8% of hypertension cases in a week, beating an initial office cuff reading at 55.3%
• Newborns who skip the vitamin K shot have more than twice the risk of intracranial bleeding, a 5.2 million-infant study finds
• An infant dies of measles in Wisconsin, the state's first measles death since 1990, as cases reach 431
• A Washington dairy farmworker dies of bird flu, the first U.S. avian influenza death of 2026
• Medicare proposes scrapping hospital obstetric and emergency readiness training rules and asks about loosening CRNA supervision
• A generative AI chatbot for pregnant and postpartum patients fails to improve anxiety or depression in a 400-person trial
• Mayo Clinic opens an AI chatbot covering more than 35 specialties to its clinicians and partner organizations
• FDA clears PulseAI's model that reads atrial fibrillation on smartwatch and other wearable ECGs
• Electronic record alerts fail to cut routine testing before cataract surgery in a UCLA randomized trial