(Toronto, October 16, 2026) — JMIR Publications this week released three News and Perspectives features on the latest digital health news: stories on how informed consent must be rethought for clinical trials involving AI; Canada’s proposed Safe Social Media Act and the Canadian Medical Association’s support; and a promising new autonomous oxygen titration device for health care.
Designing Informed Consent for AI Trials
In " Informed Consent in the AI Age: Why and How Documentation Must Change ", JMIR Correspondent and researcher Hankun Su argues that traditional informed consent frameworks, which tend to assume that risks to patient safety are static and that clinicians will be able to fill in any gaps in understanding, are inadequate for clinical trials that use AI. “Documents must anticipate questions clinicians cannot answer and provide accessible responses within the text itself,” he writes. Su and his colleagues developed an informed consent framework for AI-related clinical trials that mandates transparency and disclosure, uses tiered standards based on risk, and employs dynamic consent mechanisms—one of many possible frameworks. “The deeper imperative,” writes Su, is recognizing that participant autonomy in AI trials depends on information ecosystems designed for the world as it actually functions, not the world as we wish it were.”
The Canadian Medical Association’s Campaign for Social Media Safeguards
JMIR Correspondent Wendy Glauser reports on a physician-led campaign in favour of Canada’s Bill C-34 in " Canadian Medical Association Calls for Social Media Policies to “Heal Childhood” ”. Bill C-34, if passed, would “ban children under 16 from creating social media accounts, unless the platform can show that it has adequate safeguards in place to protect children’s mental health…[and] require AI chatbots and social media platforms to better prevent cyberbullying and content that encourages self-harm or sexually victimizes children,” writes Glauser. She speaks with physicians on the upticks in mental health issues they’ve observed in their offices, as well as with psychology researcher Amori Mikami, PhD on the complexities of social media’s effects—good and bad—on mental health.
Offloading Oxygenation
Hypoxemic patients need their supplemental oxygen flow to be adjusted repeatedly to maintain a healthy blood oxygen level, creating a critical but time-consuming task for health care workers. In " Could Autonomous Oxygen Titration Help Patients—And Busy Care Teams—Breathe Easier? ", JMIR Correspondent and ICU nurse Jenna Congdon covers a promising closed-loop device that uses feedback from a pulse oximeter to titrate patients’ blood oxygen levels to a set target. A recent clinical trial evaluating this device found that the automated oxygenation control “significantly reduced time spent in both hypoxemia and hyperoxemia” (low and high blood oxygen, respectively). Still, writes Congdon, “autonomous titration still operates within clinician-prescribed parameters…it raises a question about who holds ultimate responsibility when things go wrong.”
About JMIR Publications News and Perspectives
JMIR Publications is a leading open access publisher of digital health research. The News and Perspectives section is the newest addition to its portfolio, established to bring the rigor and integrity of academic publishing to scientific journalism. The section features well-researched, expert-driven content from the Scientific News Editor, Kayleigh-Ann Clegg, PhD, and a network of specialist JMIR Publications Correspondents to keep the digital health community informed, inspired, and ahead of the curve.
About JMIR Publications
JMIR Publications is a leading open access publisher of digital health research and a champion of open science. With a focus on author advocacy and research amplification, JMIR Publications partners with researchers to advance their careers and maximize the impact of their work. As a technology organization with publishing at its core, we provide innovative tools and resources that go beyond traditional publishing, supporting researchers at every step of the dissemination process. Our portfolio features a range of peer-reviewed journals, including the renowned Journal of Medical Internet Research.
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