The Trump administration announced Wednesday the “Make Health Tech Great Again” initiative. Joining with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), over 60 tech and healthcare companies committed to promoting easier access to medical records and personal data.
Some of the biggest names in health care and technology agreed to the pledge, including Amazon, Apple, Google, OpenAI, Epic, Microsoft, CVS Health, and UnitedHealth Group. CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz said in a press release that the agreement signals a coming “paradigm shift in the U.S. healthcare system."
"For too long, patients in this country have been burdened with a healthcare system that has not kept pace with the disruptive innovations that have transformed nearly every other sector of our economy," said CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz. "With the commitments made by these entrepreneurial companies today, we stand ready for a paradigm shift in the U.S. healthcare system for the benefit of patients and providers.”
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) website says the organization is taking "bold steps to modernize the nation’s digital health ecosystem."
“For decades, bureaucrats and entrenched interests buried health data and blocked patients from taking control of their health,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “That ends today."
The modernization effort centers on two areas. The first focus is a CMS compatible system that can easily share information between patients and providers. Seven health providers who signed the initiative committed to promoting and developing options for easy transfer of electronic health records. Their goal is to "help kill the clipboard" through digital options.
"We’re tearing down digital walls, returning power to patients, and rebuilding a health system that serves the people," said Kennedy. "This is how we begin to Make America Healthy Again.”
The second focus is on increasing personalized tools for patients, with the goal of enabling users to manage their own health better in order to prevent diabetes and obesity. AI assistants would be integrated to help patients monitor their lifestyle choices, evaluate symptoms, and schedule appointments.
Under this new commitment, thirty of these sixty companies will be able to obtain medical records from networks that align with CMS standards and data sharing criteria, after digitally verifying user identity. CMS's announcement does not stipulate what criteria these companies must meet in order to access medical records.
Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in charge of maintaining the system, have said patients would need to opt in for the sharing of their medical records and data to access these resources. CMS maintains that the data shared would remain secure.
CMS highlighted its new Health Tech Ecosystem initiative with a testimonial from Amy Gleason, Strategic Advisor to the Department of Health and Human Services.