The latest trend: patients’ access to their own health data.
Epic, one of the largest electronic health record firms, is NOT at all a fan of HHS’ recently proposed health data sharing rules (read about the proposed ruling here).
- In an interesting development, Epic’s CEO urged its health system partners in an e-mail to oppose the ruling. On Friday, January 24, Epic told Politico that it may sue HHS over the ruling, calling the proposal “deeply flawed.”
Stuff about the ruling you should know
The HHS proposed ruling is designed to provide clearer guidance on how patient health information can be accessed – namely, making it easier for patients to access their own health information.
- Epic thinks that the ruling will hurt patient privacy (since 3rd parties will have an easier time accessing that info) and wants to work with HHS to establish more appropriate guidelines.
The bigger picture
HHS’ wants to make it easier for patients to access their data across health systems – something that Epic probably thinks is a key competitive advantage of theirs.
- Think about it. If all electronic health records systems – or other third parties – could easily access patient data regardless of the IT system any one provider is using, it becomes less important to have Epic – or any particular health records platform – as your system.
Who’s on board
Apple, Microsoft, and the rest of the Big Tech gang are on board with the interoperability proposal and want the policy to go through so that consumers can access their data “without further delay.”
Epic is definitely feeling the heat. They just announced the end of their collaboration with Google (which is probably a future potential competitor).
The interoperability schism between Epic and Big Tech rages on.
On Jan. 27th, the CARIN Alliance, comprised of new entrants like Apple, Google, and the rest of Big Tech, issued a short letter (read it here) to HHS in major support of the data-sharing proposal.
- They think that the newly proposed healthcare data laws would ‘revolutionize the exchange of medical records.’
The bigger picture.
Amidst all of the data privacy concerns as of late, Google and others want better guidance around patient privacy. They want the data-sharing rules to be consistent with other modern data standards.
How would this affect me?
If the HHS’ proposed ruling were to go through as-is, then approved third parties would be able to access your medical records via application programming interfaces, or APIs. APIs would make it much easier for third party software to communicate with your medical records.
- So, in theory, you would be able to access all of your medical records and patient history on your smartphone or anywhere you go to get healthcare. It really might open up healthcare to vast opportunities, with – of course – some privacy concerns.
Read all about it:
- Apple, Cerner call for interoperability rule release ‘without further delay,’ highlighting industry rift (Fierce Healthcare)
- Privacy versus access debate rages on, rekindled by Epic lobbying (Healthcare Dive)
- All kinds of perspectives on the ruling (Beckers)
We’ll see where the interoperability ruling ends up. For now, it seems as if Epic is just delaying the inevitable.
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