“In health care, breakthrough cures are no longer just hidden in the innumerable mysteries of biology and chemistry. Increasingly, they are locked away in a place even harder to access: electronic patient records…. But the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is seeking to open the data floodgates. The agency wants to put patients in charge of their information instead of the hospitals and insurers that collect it and keep it locked within their own systems. And it wants to do so explicitly to help app and device makers gain access to high-quality data….”
“But the intent of the CMS initiative, dubbed MyHealthEData, goes beyond the typical ones cited by insurance executives and health policy wonks — things like minimizing unnecessary treatment or medical error, helping doctors do their jobs more efficiently, and letting patients see their own records….”
“Verma has also emphasized the broader commercial value of this data, saying that her agency wants to help create a “healthcare information ecosystem” that allows companies “to tailor products and services to compete for patients…”
“CMS has already taken some steps to increase sharing of data in electronic health records. Starting next year, doctors in certain program will be able to share more information via APIs…” Read the full article here.
Source: The government wants to free your health data. Will that unleash innovation? – By Casey Ross, March 29, 2018. STAT.
