Journal of Medical Internet Research

Historic and ongoing problematic practices regarding the collection, storage, and use of Indigenous health data have led to the need to ensure principles of Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDS) are followed in research practices and technology development.

Multimorbidity involves heterogeneous disease combinations, treatment burden, competing priorities, and complex care pathways. Digital health interventions (DHIs) may support monitoring, self-management, and care coordination, but their effects on health-related outcomes remain uncertain.

Although thyroid nodules are detected in up to 60% of adults on ultrasound, the vast majority are benign, creating a substantial decision-making burden compounded by heterogeneous practice guidelines. Large language models (LLMs) show promise in processing unstructured medical text and are emerging as tools for report interpretation among both clinicians and patients. However, their reliability across distinct clinical tasks in thyroid ultrasound interpretation remains poorly characterized.

With the expanding need for advance care planning (ACP), innovative educational strategies for training health care providers are increasingly required. Large language model (LLM)–based ACP chatbots offer a novel and potentially effective solution to enhance health care providers’ competence in navigating complex ACP conversations.

The rapid emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) has outpaced its formal adoption in health care organizations, contributing to the emergence of Shadow AI, defined here as the use of unauthorized AI tools by medical professionals. Under the European Union Medical Device Regulation, AI tools used for clinical purposes must undergo conformity assessment before use; general-purpose tools such as ChatGPT have not done so, rendering their clinical application unauthorized at the regulatory level. While Shadow AI offers potential efficiency gains and higher performance, it poses significant risks to data privacy, clinical safety, and regulatory compliance. Despite its growing prevalence, empirical research on the purposes for which physicians use Shadow AI remains scarce.

Therapist-guided internet-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy (guided iCBT) is increasingly implemented in routine mental health care to expand access to evidence-based treatments. Although the clinical effectiveness and patient acceptability of guided iCBT for common mental health disorders are well established, less is known about how introducing such digitally mediated interventions reshapes therapists’ everyday work practices and professional roles. Existing research has primarily focused on treatment outcomes, service uptake, and organizational implementation challenges, leaving therapists’ lived professional experiences and role enactment in routine practice underexplored.

Health misinformation is a serious and growing concern, especially in the era of mass digitalization. However, the term lacks conceptual clarity, reducing our ability to build a reliable, replicable evidence base about how misinformation works and undermining our attempts to develop effective responses. There is, therefore, a need to examine how the term is used and to develop a coherent definition that better reflects people’s information priorities, concerns, and understandings of the concept.

Health care systems face escalating cyberattacks, including the UK Synnovis ransomware attack, which halted pathology services for 14 weeks; the Ascension Health breach affecting 5.6 million patients; and the Change Healthcare breach costing US $2.5 billion. Conventional cybersecurity measures in health care remain reactive and inadequate against evolving threats. Machine learning (ML) offers adaptive, predictive, real-time cyber defense; yet, there is limited clarity on how ML tools are applied across cybersecurity domains, their real-world effectiveness, and where gaps remain.

Social media platforms have become important spaces for the circulation and discussion of health information. X (formerly Twitter) is one such space where traditional, complementary, and integrative medicine (TCIM)–related terms circulate in public health discourse. However, longitudinal TCIM-related mention patterns on social media, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic period, remain poorly documented.

Youth are increasingly engaging with generative AI (GenAI) chatbots; yet, little is known about the nature of their interactions.

Spiritual care providers are increasingly challenged to address the introduction of AI within the ethical, theological, and organizational bounds of their employers and religious or worldview communities. However, empirical data on professional perspectives regarding AI implementation in spiritual care remain scarce.