Russian hacker group Killnet has claimed responsibility for a string of recent cyberattacks that took more than a dozen hospital websites offline across the U.S. — including the websites for Cedars-Sinai, Michigan Medicine, and UPMC. The group has been active for at least a year and is known to target countries that support and/or send resources to Ukraine.

Experts think virtual reality (VR) can help address the country’s rising levels of pain and anxiety. By flooding the brain with positive signals, VR experiences can act as a drug-free alternative to pain and mental health management — and hospitals across the nation are deploying the technology.

The company has struck partnerships with properties owned by Cedars-Sinai, BayCare and others, and is looking to build out some healthcare-specific features, such as medication management.

Chief patient experience officers from the Cleveland Clinic, Northwell Health and Cedars Sinai talk about how they are approaching patient engagement and experience in each of their health systems at the HLTH conference in Las Vegas.

The 11 companies in the accelerator’s fifth cohort were drawn from around the United States and U.K. and are focused on everything from VR medical education to helping make patient feedback surveys easier to administer.

Virtual reality has evolved from being a technological novelty to a legitimate clinical tool in areas like chronic pain management and neurological rehab, leading experts to think through how best to integrate VR into healthcare.

As part of the newly announced pilot, more than 100 patient rooms at Cedars-Sinai are equipped with an Alexa-powered platform called Aiva, which patients can use to control their entertainment and interact with nurses.

Kristi Ebong has been hired by Orbita as its new senior vice president of strategy and general manager for healthcare providers.

Relying on everything from artificial intelligence to Bluetooth technology, the nine startups in the fourth class of the accelerator are working to solve problems related to patient consent, medical equipment tracking and more.

The change follows the departure of Omkar Kulkarni, who previously served as director of the program. He became the first chief innovation officer for Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles earlier this month.

The Cedars-Sinai accelerator, which is powered by Techstars, announced its third cohort of startups this fall. Now, the 10 selected companies have unveiled deals and partnerships with various players in the healthcare space.

During a panel discussion at the Connected Health Conference in Boston, two physicians and a patient touched on how virtual reality is aiding a variety of healthcare consumers. Yet as one panelist noted, we shouldn’t overpromise what it can do.

Patient experience is a noteworthy topic to hospitals. But as outlined during a panel at MedCity ENGAGE, health systems need to look beyond the consumer and seek to boost the experience of providers as well.

Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai said it’s one of only a handful of hospitals and health systems to make an app available on the Apple Watch.

Whittled down from roughly 600 applicants, the goals of the 10 companies in the third cohort include improving the patient experience, offering more personalized care plans for cancer treatment, triaging patients faster and making blood sample collection less painful.

Three CXOs — Alan Dubovsky, Dr. Sara Laskey and Dr. Thomas Savides — will speak at MedCity ENGAGE next month. In recent interviews, they discussed their roles and the significance of engaging both patients and providers.

As the healthcare industry looks for opioid alternatives, Samsung is working with a digital health startup to use virtual reality to relieve anxiety and pain in clinical studies at Cedars-Sinai.