Mental health workers at Kaiser Permanente are protesting a policy that pauses gender-affirming surgeries for patients under 19.

Kaiser announced the pause, which will go into effect Aug. 29, following pressure from the Trump administration to stop trans youth from accessing gender-affirming care. Other gender-affirming treatments, like puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and mental health care will still be available, SF Gate reported.

The workers are represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), which has 19,000 members in total. Of that, 4,700 are psychologists, social workers, and marriage and family therapists at Kaiser Permanente’s California and Hawaii locations. The union also has trans members, parents of trans children, and staff who provide gender-affirming care regularly, Sal Rosselli, president emeritus at NUHW, told Healthcare Brew.

Fight for rights. Rosselli said the union “has a long track record of standing up for the rights of patients to get the care they need and countering misinformation that could lead to patients not getting appropriate care.”

Find more on what Kaiser and its union had to say.—CM

AI is making its way into patient conversations, hospital rooms, and administrative work across healthcare. But there are downsides of using AI in the clinic, like cybersecurity risks and a lack of regulations.

A study published Aug. 12 in the Lancet found another possible issue: clinicians losing their skills.

The research was conducted by hospital and academic researchers affiliated with institutions in Poland, Spain, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Japan, and the UK from Sept. 8, 2021, through March 9, 2022. It looked into how well endoscopists who “regularly used AI” performed colonoscopies when the technology was and was not available to them.

Researchers conducted the observational study of 1,443 patients at four endoscopy centers in Poland that began using AI tools to help detect polyps. They evaluated the quality of colonoscopies three months before and three months after implementing AI.

Here are more findings from the study.—CM

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Loneliness epidemic. Mental health crisis. These terms are often used to describe the state of mental health in the US, all while the country is also experiencing a behavioral health staffing shortage.

That’s where lay counselors come in.

These mental health professionals provide counseling without going through the traditional state licensure process. One group, the Lay Counselor Academy (LCA), is helping train groups like social workers, legal aid staff, and community health workers to become lay counselors.

Co-founder Alli Moreno brings her own expertise as a defense investigator and lay counselor to provide guidance for others interested in a “nonconventional pathway.”

After leaving the legal field when she started a family, she told us she was looking “for something that would be intervening or making a meaningful difference in people’s lives.” She joined up with co-founder Elizabeth Morrison in 2021 to see how Morrison’s psychology background and Moreno’s experience could help shape the field.

See the full convo here.—NO