The Beastwood Files: January(ish) 2026

The beginning of the year was, um, well, it was something, wasn’t it? I found it hard to be productive at times between the state of our nation, the pile of snow outside, the hole that has opened up in my schedule now that a retainer agreement is up, and the post-nasal drip that comes every winter but is still a heck of a lot better than the flu or COVID. (And this is despite my “assistant” building himself a “computer” to “do work” – complete with a “power source” he has the good sense to “unplug” when he’s all done, likely making the IT help desk veterans in my audience swoon.)

Stuff I Wrote

• MIT Sloan Ideas Made to Matter: AI open models have benefits. So why aren’t they more widely used? This piece explores adoption patterns for open AI models, which perform almost as well as proprietary ones but cost much, much less.
• MIT Sloan: How digital business models are evolving in the age of agentic AI. As the business world moves from the digital era to the AI era, companies have little choice but to pivot.
• HealthTech Magazine: AI in Healthcare Administration: A Complete Overview. Healthcare’s not actually afraid of AI; the industry just needs to see the value proposition. Mostly, that means making clinical, financial, and operational administrative workflows more efficient.
• Digital Health Insights: Closing care gaps with AI-driven referrals. Referral leakage is a clinical and financial problem; AI, used in the right parts of the patient journey, can help.
• Digital Health Insights: Direct primary care’s gains may be the traditional care setting’s losses. When more docs adopt the DPC model, there are fewer docs available – and more patients who need a doc. Something’s gotta give.
• Digital Health Insights: Amid tech’s AI push, some health systems forge their own path. Many large heath systems are opting to build their own AI tools – even as commercial releases make headlines.
• Digital Health Insights: AI is a cybersecurity friend – and a foe. Many of the traits that make AI great for improving cybersecurity are also helpful for hackers. Something’s, uh, gotta give.
• Digital Health Insights: Providers oppose proposed changes to HIPAA Security Rule. They think it’s too much, too fast, and too expensive. Their motivation may be political, too.
• Custom content for clients in digital health, patient engagement, healthcare operations, and enterprise security

Things I Did

• Succeeded in only having one coffee per day – and only occasionally hurting the tum-tum with too much black tea in the afternoon
• Rediscovered salad kits as a good option for Busy Parents on the Go or Otherwise Unable to Locate Vegetables in the Refrigerator They Aren’t Already Sick of Eating
• Failed miserably to put out a newsletter – though let’s be honest, 90% of it would have been the AI stories you already read
• Learn what is a fatberg thanks to a children’s book about urban infrastructure
• Read a book about Groundhog Day roughly eight times in the span of a week

Adventures in Fatherhood

• During last month’s snow day – certainly justified, as we got close to two feet of snow – I found myself uttering the phrase, “If you want to interrupt Mommy’s meeting, she said it’s OK, but you need to put pants on.”
• Also during said snow day, during my third trip outside to shovel, my son decided that we should have one big pile of snow next to our front walkway instead of two smaller piles. As a result, I dutifully spent an hour moving shovels full of snow approximately two feet to make Snow Mountain, which my son ascended and descended many times before it got too dark to keep playing.
• We have discovered the Winters Olympics. Our favorite events so far are ski jump, ski and snowboard cross (with multiple simultaneous competitors), and biathlon (especially odd because we’ve never bene on skis and have never seen a rifle). We’ve also regaled our son with tales of how hard it was to watch Back In Our Day, when you were beholden to whatever NBC was willing to show you. This further reinforces my son’s proclamation at his self-determined conclusion of soccer (that is, not even halfway through the season): “I like watching sports more than playing sports.”

Happy rest of February. In case you’re wondering, People Who Prefer Summer: Yes, even though it’s very cold, I still prefer this to 85 degrees and humid, because in this weather I can bend over and tie my shoes without breaking into a sweat.