CNBC is reporting that Epic Systems CEO Judy Faulkner has emailed client hospitals around the country urging them to push back on proposed rules from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to make medical data sharing easier.
The HHS has proposed a set of rules that would make it easier for patients to access their medical data at no extra cost and prevent companies from blocking their access. Specifically, the rules will make it easier for applications to access the medical data via application programming interfaces (APIs) and will facilitate sharing data with other hospitals and medical practices a patient may want to use.
Epic is one of the largest medical records companies and is staunchly opposed to the new rules, citing patient privacy concerns. There is likely more to Epic’s opposition, however, as any legislation that would increase data mobility would also make it significantly easier for other tech companies to build competing products. Ones such as Apple and Microsoft are already at least peripherally in the medical space, and the new rules would open up new opportunists for them.
According to CNBC, “former White House Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra expressed frustration over Epic’s move. ‘It is unfortunate to see this much effort placed at stalling the important, bipartisan progress we have made to open up health information — at a minimum to consumers and institutions they trust.’”
Peter Lee, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Healthcare, says “It’s a historic time right now with whole health industry moving to the cloud.”
Peter Lee and Aneesh Chopra, former Chief Technology Officer of CareJourney, discussed how the healthcare industry and all of the cloud providers including Microsoft, Google, Amazon, IBM, Salesforce, and Oracle are in agreement on data standards that are making this move to the cloud possible.
It’s a historic time right now with the whole health industry moving to the cloud. We now have viable new standards for health data and there’s some pretty smart policy that you had a direct hand in creating. It all seems to be coming together right now. – Peter Lee
A Wonderful Opportunity to Show Leadership
The consumer right to access their health information and to make sure it’s available when and where it’s needed is really a bedrock principle that’s having an impact in all aspects of this. Physicians, health plans, and health systems are all trying to figure out how to communicate to consumers and how to use that infrastructure to better serve them through care teams and others. I think it is a wonderful opportunity to show some leadership. – Aneesh Chopra
All of the Major Cloud Providers Came Together
It was a pretty high point in my career to be on stage holding hands with my counterparts from Google, Amazon, IBM, Salesforce, and Oracle. It was pretty awesome. The idea is can we intervene in just the right way so that when health data moves to the cloud we will be in a more interoperable place. – Peter Lee
Embracing a Common Language and Architecture
The fact that we are not going to be Betamax versus VHS, that we preemptively said that the industry when it makes this move is going to embrace a common language and common architecture. I think that’s kind of a big deal. The more important thing is that none of this is going to happen on its own. We are going to have to have people participate.- Aneesh Chopra
Health Responders Currently Can’t Access Health Data
We heard some amazing stories, even from Seema Verma, the CMS Administrator, about what danger we put ourselves in when we get ill or something happens and the people who respond and try to help us can’t access health data. It doesn’t flow and it’s not liberative. It’s just something that we need to work together to fix. – Peter Lee
This is a Unique Moment
Everyone’s known this has been a challenge and it’s been a challenge for decades but the moment seems to be right. There is this transition to the cloud, there’s a regulatory clarity from both political parties that says with one voice we want open API’s with no special effort.
Frankly, a commitment from the major EHR vendors as well as the health systems and other stakeholders should say we’re willing to participate and we’re willing to work together. That’s a unique moment that we’ve got to take advantage of for the industry.- Aneesh Chopra
There is Some Marketing But It’s Also Authentic for Microsoft
The HR vendors, that whole industry, has done an amazing job over the last 15 years getting everything to be digital. Now that that’s been accomplished, an amazing accomplishment that was, we now need to get the value out of that data. Really open it up, really enable it to be the thing improves costs and improves outcomes.
For us, it’s also just a chance for Microsoft to play a positive role in all of this. Sure, there are big business opportunities, but when you think about Microsoft today and how open it is, the ethos to empower people and organizations, there is some marketing there but it’s also an authentic real thing for us. – Peter Lee
The Time is Now
The fact that there is a table that’s been set with all the key players including the EHR vendors and the cloud providers and even organizations like Apple saying let’s all agree that this is a path let’s start to get to work on, setting up clinical notes and all the other data that has not yet been run through a standards process.
That’s why I think the opportunity for everyone to participate is now. If you have use cases if you have an opportunity to know how to move your data to a more open environment the window of opportunity is today.- Aneesh Chopra
The White House is really getting some mileage out of Google+ Hangouts lately. First they hosted that Hangout with President Obama earlier this week in which he answered questions submitted by people via YouTube and tomorrow they’re using Hangouts once again to promote Obama’s small business initiative, Startup America.
Announced earlier today via the White House Google+ account, people are invited to join Gene Sperling (Director of the National Economic Council), Steve Case (Chairman of the Startup America Partnership), and Aneesh Chopra (U.S. Chief Technology Office) tomorrow for a live conversation about Startup America. People are encouraged to submit questions via the White House Google+ page and then join the Hangout on Thursday, February 2 (that’s tomorrow!) at 5:30PM EST on either the White House’s official YouTube channel, the White House’s website, or the White House Google+ page. The three partipants will be talking about some of the questions posed by users and how Startup America can enable small businesses.
Steve Case has actually worked with President Obama to draft the legislature for Startup America and just released a statement yesterday extolling Obama’s commitment to small businesses. One reason you might be hearing the Obama Administration promote Startup America lately is because yesterday marked the one year anniversary since the initiative started. However, if you’re still not an initiate to this whole Startup America program, check out these videos below in which Case talks about his early days at AOL as well as some testimonials from small business entrepreneurs.
In 2009, President Obama tapped Virginia’s Secretary of Technology to fill a brand new job – the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer. Aneesh Chopra’s goal was to help bring the Federal government out of the 20th century and into a world filled with new technology.
And now, Chopra is stepping down. The White House blog has nothing but great things to say about him:
Aneesh has led that charge in an energetic, innovative, and amazingly effective manner, and sowed the seeds necessary to bring our government into the 21st century.
Working with Aneesh for nearly three years has been an invigorating experience. Among a dizzying array of accomplishments, Aneesh helped design the President’s National Wireless Initiative, including the development of a nationwide public safety broadband network, establish a set of Internet Policy Principles including the call for a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, and led the implementation of the President’s open government strategy focused on unlocking the innovative potential of the federal government to solve problems and seed the jobs and industries of the future.
One of his last announcements in office was the “America’s Next Top energy Innovator” challenge, a program designed to find entrepreneurs and visionaries in the field of energy innovations and advanced manufacturing.
He also recently announced the “Green Button,” an initiative that allows households to download their energy use information so that they can make decisions to save energy and money.
After an incredible three years as the nation’s first chief technology officer, I am returning to my home state of Virginia to continue my work using innovative new technologies and platforms to improve healthcare, education and energy – and to grow the jobs and industries of the future. I want to thank the President for entrusting me with the task of fostering an innovation culture in government, and for his direction, engagement, and leadership on applying technology for the betterment of all Americans.
Although he says that he’s going back home to focus on innovation, Democratic sources tell the post that Chopra is gearing up to run for the Lieutenant Governorship in Virginia.
