The “MyHealthEData” initiative

Posted on March 14, 2018 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

Fed Initiative to Put Patients in Control of their Health Data

[By Greg Slabodkin]

The Trump administration is attempting to put patients in control of their own health data and to spur healthcare innovation as part of its broader efforts to cut red tape in the federal government.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services just announced at the HIMSS18 conference in Las Vegas the launch of the MyHealthEData initiative, which CMS Administrator Seema Verma claimed is the first time any administration has set in motion a coordinated initiative to truly make patients the focus of the healthcare system by using the federal government’s full authority to ensure providers and insurers give patients control of their medical records.

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According to Verma, patients might be able to obtain some information from providers within a healthcare system but there’s no way to aggregate that data, and when providers don’t have all the necessary information at hand, they repeat tests, driving up costs and causing medical errors—which threaten patient safety.

“The MyHealthEData initiative will enable doctors to spend more time with their patients and less time looking at their computer once our policies go into effect,” added Verma. “It will declare to hospitals and insurers that the practice of holding patients hostage in their systems and blocking their data will no longer be tolerated.”

Source: Health Data Management [3/6/18]

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