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Sara Shanti

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Sara Helene Shanti is a partner in the Corporate Practice Group in the firm's Chicago office.

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Recent developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have been transforming several sectors, and the healthcare industry is no exception. In the second episode of Sheppard Mullin’s Health-e Law Podcast, Jim Gatto, a partner at Sheppard Mullin and the co-leader of its AI Team, explores the significant implications and challenges of incorporating AI into the healthcare industry with Sheppard Mullin’s Digital Health Team co-chairs, Sara Shanti and Phil Kim.Continue Reading AI as an Aid – Emerging Uses in Healthcare: A Discussion with Jim Gatto

In the inaugural episode of Sheppard Mullin’s Health-e Law podcast, renowned expert Dr. Laura Tully, Vice President of Clinical Services at ChatOwl, discussed emerging issues for health-tech’s data collection and use activities with Sheppard Mullin’s Digital Health Team co-chairs, Sara Shanti and Phil Kim.Continue Reading In Tech We Trust? The Case for Transparency: A Discussion with Dr. Laura Tully

Sheppard Mullin’s Healthcare Team has launched “Health-e Law”, a new podcast dedicated to the interaction between technology and health. Each episode will cover innovations that impact health care in bite-sized, 15-minute episodes, that will keep listeners updated on the fascinating health-tech topics and trends of the day. Our Digital Health Team, alongside experts and thought leaders, will share how innovations can solve some of health care’s (and maybe the world’s) biggest problems, if properly navigated. Health-e Law is hosted by partners Sara Shanti and Phil Kim and associate Michael Sutton.Continue Reading Health-e Law Launches: New Podcast Covers Health-Tech and Law

Last week’s historic executive order (EO) on the development and use of artificial intelligence (AI) is teeming with urgency, both in caution and optimism, to keep pace with the technological advancements. The EO addresses the duality of AI—its promising utility and disconcerting risks—across a range of public and private sectors, including healthcare. Below are five key takeaways from the EO for the healthcare industry.Continue Reading AI’s Executive Order and Its Key Healthcare Implications 

On November 2, 2023, the American Hospital Association and Texas Hospital Association, in conjunction with the Texas Health Resources and United Regional Health Care System, filed suit against the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) and the Director of the HHS Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) regarding OCR’s guidance on the use of online tracking technologies by HIPAA entities.[i] This action and its results will impact how healthcare entities must protect and may use certain information collected on their digital sites.Continue Reading Caught in the Web: Hospital Associations Sue OCR on Third-Party Web Tracking Guidance

At HLTH 2023, we saw a focus on certain themes, including the shift in investments and M&A activity, hospital and health system innovation and transformation, the implementation of AI, and healthcare management. Below are our top 10 takeaways from what we heard, and did not hear, at HLTH 2023.Continue Reading Sheppard Mullin’s Top 10 Takeaways from HLTH 2023

This month, the Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”), in conjunction with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (“SAMHSA”), issued a Second Temporary Rule further extending the telemedicine waivers of the Ryan Haight Act (“RHA”) promulgated during the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (“PHE”) from November 11, 2023 until December 31, 2024. Under the Second Temporary Rule, practitioners may continue to prescribe schedule II-V controlled medications via telemedicine for new and existing patients without conducting a prior in-person medical evaluation through 2024. Continue Reading Tele-Prescribing Flexibilities Extended Again in Second Temporary Rule

The digital health market, as represented by the HLTH showroom floor, is packed with companies focused on care coordination and care management for various health and wellness specialties, diseases, and chronic conditions, as well as organizations focused on increasing consumer access to various types of healthcare. Despite the growth of data analytics and interoperability, the constellation of companies and points of access are decentralized and disconnected. While the abundance of choice and options enhancing accessibility for healthcare consumers are positive indicators of progress in this space, the lack of holistic care coordination across this fragmented landscape affects patient outcomes, causes patient confusion and decision fatigue, and leads to potential care and resource duplication and waste.Continue Reading At HLTH 2023: The Digital Health Symphony, A Care Coordination Orchestra with No Maestro

At the heart of our healthcare system lies two core, yet competing, philosophies: (1) clinical decisions must not be driven by profit, and (2) dollars drive behavior and, by harnessing this revenue, clinical outcomes can be vastly improved while the costs to the system of unnecessary care can be dramatically reduced. Here at HLTH, venture capital firm General Catalyst announced it is seeking to change that paradigm with the launch of its Health Assurance Transformation Corporation (HATCo), seeking to transform healthcare with global risk arrangements while leveraging data and technology. Continue Reading At HLTH 2023: General Catalyst’s HATCo Introduces a Radically Ambitious and Transformative Model for Healthcare

Texas is joining a growing number of states in passing comprehensive privacy legislation intended to safeguard consumer personal data.[1] Specifically, the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act (the “Act”) adds protections for consumers[2] and their personal data, which includes any information that is linked or reasonably linkable to an identified or identifiable individual.[3]Continue Reading Texas is Making Moves on a Comprehensive Consumer Privacy Law