RFK Jr to Lean on AI to Bolster Cyber, Health IT at Agencies

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services aims to bolster cybersecurity and health IT through the aid of artificial intelligence that will be used at federal health agencies, said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of HHS during House and Senate committee budget hearings on Wednesday.

Kennedy’s comments came during his opening testimony during a House appropriations committee hearing and also at a Senate health, education, labor and pensions panel hearing.

The hearings were slated to focus on HHS’ fiscal 2026 proposals, but both often ventured into grilling by Democrats lawmakers about the Trump administration cuts to HHS and agencies and programs.

That included some Democrat lawmakers slamming Kennedy for HHS cuts already announced, including slashing HHS workforce by 20,000 employees (see: RFK Jr. Cuts at HHS Affect HIPAA, Cyber Response Units).

Much of the scrutiny focused on the legality of HHS’ drastic cuts to programs at agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and research projects that were already previously appropriated funding by Congress for fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2025.

“The OMB [office of management and budget] director has indicated that you are going to illegally impound billions of dollars of congressionally appropriated funding for NIH research in 2025,” said committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. “To make matters worse, you are proposing to cut NIH funding by $20 billion in 2026. You do not have the authority to do what you are doing.”

But Kennedy testified at several points during both hearings that he was not permitted to speak about the current ongoing round of HHS cuts and departmental reorganization due to a federal court ruling that has at least temporarily paused much of the downsizing.

But during his opening comments at both hearings, Kennedy cited cybersecurity and health IT – and the use of AI – as priorities for the department.

“We will strengthen cybersecurity and health IT. The AI revolution has arrived and we are already using these new technologies to help manage healthcare data more efficiently and securely,” he said.

Kennedy was not specifically asked by any lawmakers during the sessions to elaborate on exactly how HHS would be focused on beefing up cybersecurity or its plans for health IT. But in responding to other questions, including about work at the Food and Drug Administration, Kennedy provided glimpses into those plans.

The FDA will be using AI to help quicken its review of biomedical technologies, especially during the “phase three studies,” which are “the longest and most expensive to do,” he told lawmakers.

Also, HHS would be encouraging greater use of telemedicine technologies in the healthcare sector, including those incorporating AI, to help communities such as rural healthcare to fill severe workforce and services gaps more widely.

HHS wants to “dramatically revolutionize the availability of telehealth and AI so that people can avoid the emergency room and get treated at home,” he said. One such example is the potential use of an AI tool to help clinicians accurately diagnose strep throats using photos of patients’ throats taken on smartphones. “The accuracy is greater than throat swabs,” he said. HHS wants to “integrate AI into all our systems.”

‘Skinny Budget’

As of Wednesday, the Trump administration has only issued a so-called “skinny budget,” but has not yet submitted a more in-depth document that details staffing and funding requests for specific agencies and programs, including HHS’ Office for Civil Rights, which oversees HIPAA enforcement.

Overall, Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget proposes $93.8 billion for HHS, which is a 26.2% reduction from the fiscal 2025 enacted level.

Also during the Senate HELP committee, Kennedy testified that a project to create a national registry of individuals with autism would protect patient privacy, including data being de-identified and individuals being given a choice to opt out. “Every important disease has a registry” at the National Institutes of Health, he said (see: HHS to Build Secure Data Platform for Autism Research).