Apple and others back government plan to digitize healthcare
Major tech companies are aligning with a federal effort to reengineer how patients access and manage their healthcare data.
Image credit: WikiMedia
Apple is among over sixty companies supporting a federal push to modernize U.S. healthcare infrastructure, as announced by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on Wednesday. Other major participants include Amazon, Alphabet, Anthropic, and OpenAI.
The initiative is part of a broader Trump administration effort aimed at improving healthcare through data sharing and enhanced digital access. According to CMS, the focus is on giving Medicare beneficiaries more control through modern health technologies.
New tools being developed include AI-powered symptom checkers, digital intake systems, and apps aimed at managing chronic conditions such as diabetes and obesity. All participating platforms must comply with CMS interoperability standards to securely access and exchange health records.
Companies involved have committed to using secure digital credentials for accessing CMS Aligned Networks that meet new data-sharing criteria. According to CMS, this infrastructure aims to support real-world outcomes instead of isolated pilot programs.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., framed the effort as a response to long-standing data barriers in the healthcare system. CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz described it as a necessary shift after decades of stagnation in healthcare innovation.
The government says these changes will "kill the clipboard" by eliminating paper intake forms through digital check-ins. AI tools will also help users assess symptoms, navigate care options, and schedule appointments.
Eleven health systems, seven electronic health record providers, and twenty-one networks have committed to meeting interoperability requirements. CMS expects measurable results from participating companies by early 2026.
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Comments
If I see a new GP or specialist, they can be up to speed in minutes!
At least with paper, or non-"interoperable" charts, the bad data is limited to what that doctor's staff enters, and it can be possible to fix it. But once you start just taking all this data from everywhere and merging it into one giant EMR, it's hopeless to even try to correct it. We now put all pertinent data on sheets of paper (Histories, Conditions, Medications, Allergies, Surgeries, ...) and hand them to the doctor while telling them that the EMR is not to be trusted, and that only the data they are looking at on those sheets is likely to be correct.
Another downside of these EMRs is that it's a huge source of Medicare Advantage fraud. Companies that offer Medicare Advantage plans mine this data for every ICD-10 code they can find and bill Medicare for it, even if it's an old diagnosis that hasn't applied in a decade or more.
The other problem with these EMR systems is that the UIs are not optimized for presenting data to physicians. These appear to be designed by software engineers who know absolutely nothing about medicine or about how to best present information to physicians. Doctors work best, are more likely to spot issues, and get a better understanding of a patient when they have all of the data in front of them at once. But these EMR systems have them clicking in and out of siloed data looking at one bit at a time making it more likely they don't spot patterns and associations.
In short, EMRs are a nightmare that no one knows how to, or has the will to, fix, and RFK & Oz are idiots who shouldn't be in charge of managing their own health care, let alone anyone else's.