White House and Tech Firms Teaming on Health Data Sharing

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mehmet Oz were expected to host tech executives at a White House event this week, Bloomberg news reported Sunday (July 27), citing sources familiar with the matter.

According to the report, the plan was put together in coordination with the White House, following a May effort by CMS to get public input on barriers to sharing patient data.

“This initiative aims to build a smarter, more secure, and more personalized health care system — one that improves patient outcomes, reduces provider burden, and drives greater value through private-sector innovation and aligned federal leadership,” CMS spokesperson Catherine Howden said in a written statement to Bloomberg.

The sources did not identify which tech companies had been invited, but said those firms would take a voluntary pledge around interoperability, or how health technology systems connect with each other and share information.

The pledges will involve principles involving patient and provider access to health information, and data sharing standards, the report said. Howden said CMS will share more information next week about the timeline for the plan.

Bloomberg noted that both Democratic and Republican administrations have sought to improve data flow throughout the U.S. healthcare system to bolster quality and prevent waste.

In other healthcare news, the recent PYMNTS Intelligence report “Clicks, Care & Copays — How Each Generation Navigates Digital Healthcare” finds that, despite being digital natives, younger Americans are technologically struggling when it comes to making basic healthcare payments.

“And this, after all, is a generational cohort for whom roughly 1 in 3 reported that their most recent healthcare experience was a virtual or digital one,” PYMNTS wrote earlier this month.

“But between opaque pricing, fragmented systems, and clunky user experiences, the financial side of healthcare is often a labyrinth of inefficiency. The result can be frequently missed payments, frustrated patients and untold sums in potentially uncollected revenue.”

The research also found that a wave of innovation is transforming the sector’s long-time bottlenecks around revenue cycle management, while impacting the ways patients pay for care and develop financial relationships with their provider networks and systems.

“FinTech startups and healthcare platforms are turning to embedded finance, particularly payment orchestration, in-app billing, and intelligent reminders; to reimagine how patients pay for care,” the report said.