The seeds of a consumer-driven health care revolution, one that could turn the U.S. health care system on its head, were sown in early March. This potential disruption comes from an unlikely source: two proposed rules from the Department of Health and Human Services that could have consumers and America’s biggest tech firms joining forces.
A Big Step Toward Giving Patients Control Over Their Health Care Data
New rules from the Trump administration would open up the industry to more competition.
March 15, 2019
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Summary.
The seeds of a consumer-driven health care revolution, one that could turn the U.S. health care system on its head, were sown in early March. This potential disruption comes from an unlikely source: two proposed rules from the Department of Health and Human Services that could have consumers and America’s biggest tech firms joining forces. The rules, from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are both focused on allowing consumers free and easy access to their health data and letting them opt to to share that data with big tech or whomever else they chose. They have the potential to open up the health care marketplace to consumer-driven competition in ways never seen before in the history of medicine in the United States or anywhere.Although the Trump administration has to weigh whatever comments on the proposed rules that interested parties submit, it has signaled support for data transparency in the past, which suggests that it won’t significantly revise them.