The US Department of Health and Human Services has finalized two transformative rules that will give patients unprecedented safe, secure access to their health data. Interoperability has been pursued by multiple administrations and numerous laws, and now, these rules finally deliver on giving patients true access to their healthcare data to make informed healthcare decisions and better manage their care. Putting patients in charge of their health records is a key piece of giving patients more control in healthcare, and patient control is at the center of the Trump administration’s work toward a value-based healthcare system.
The two rules, issued by the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, implement interoperability and patient access provisions of the bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act and support President Trump’s MyHealthEData initiative. MyHealthEData is designed to empower patients around a common aim—giving every American access to their medical information so they can make better healthcare decisions.
Together, these final rules mark the most extensive healthcare data sharing policies the federal government has implemented, requiring both public and private entities to share health information between patients and other parties while keeping that information private and secure.
