Trump administration officials on Thursday announced the first wave of health tech tools as part of an effort to make it easier for Medicare patients to access their medical records.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services officials say more than 700 companies have signed on to the agency’s HealthTech Ecosystem Initiative as part of the voluntary effort since the effort began in July.
The initiative integrates CMS infrastructure, a new Medicare app library, patient identity verification tools with CLEAR-enabled interfaces, a FHIR-based national provider directory, and an initial set of patient-facing applications to “move the nation beyond clipboards, faxes, and repetitive paperwork into a seamless, digital-first era,” CMS officials said in a press release.
CMS has set a March 31st deadline for companies to meet Minimum Viable Product (MVP) requirements and demonstrate tangible results from the HealthTech Ecosystem Pledge.
“For too long, Americans have operated a health care system that lags behind the technology used in other countries,” CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz, MD, said in a statement. “Today, CMS is bringing health care into the modern era, bringing innovators together to deliver solutions that make care easier, more connected and more personalized.”
On Thursday, at an event in Washington, D.C., CMS introduced tools from more than 50 companies. Many of them are already accessible or will soon be available to the public. According to CMS, these efforts represent the first real-world implementation of a connected digital health ecosystem where patients can access, share, and use their health information through trusted applications.
Digital health tools demonstrated during the CMS event included digital data access and check-in, or “clear clipboard” technology tools that allow patients to securely share information with a simple scan on their mobile phone, and personalized health apps that provide individualized guidance on nutrition, health, and chronic disease management.
CMS’ goal is to allow patients to share their medical records with their healthcare providers via QR codes, rather than using traditional paper clipboards to capture patients.
eClinicalWorks, a portable electronic health records company, was one of 50 companies demonstrating new technology features. The company said it has developed a QR-based workflow that allows patients to verify their identity on the spot and pull their health records directly into their medical records at check-in.
eClinicalWorks says it has simplified the practice process to implement paperless intake technology. Patients access their health information using an application designed to align with the federal government’s interoperability approach, first verifying their identity, retrieving records from available sources, and generating smart health QR codes. Providers then scan the code with eClinicalMobile and the records are available in eClinicalWorks at the point of care, the company said in a press release.
eHealth Exchange, a health information network, has signed on as a CMS-Aligned Network and partnered with b.well Connected Health to facilitate patient access to health data. At last week’s event, the companies partnered with kidney care provider DaVita to demonstrate how kidney patients can use the b.well app to securely request and retrieve medical records from DaVita locations.
Humana, Welldoc, and Noom also highlighted their partnership with b.well, aligning their efforts with the Trump administration’s push for broader interoperability.
The CMS Health Tech Ecosystem creates common standards for digital health tools and allows patients to use these apps without going through their health insurance plan. This represents an important new distribution channel.
While many industry leaders applaud CMS’s ambitious goal of facilitating access to patient medical records through digital health apps and AI tools, many executives have expressed concerns about CMS’s approach, which relies on voluntary technology efforts, and how much this effort can move the needle without regulatory teeth.
While hundreds of technology companies have joined the effort, the list of health care providers and health systems that have signed the pledge is much shorter, fewer than 50 organizations. There are currently no regulatory requirements encouraging providers or payers to adopt these tools.
CMS officials have made it clear that this effort relies heavily on private sector innovation to reorient interoperability, digital health, and patient-facing AI tools. Trump administration officials say the goal is to move faster than the slow-moving regulations. And CMS expects patients to drive adoption of these technologies.
“All the apps I was talking about, like ‘Erase Clipboard’ and conversational AI and disease management items, should be in the private sector and the government should be out of the business, and the government can’t be nimble enough to build those kinds of solutions anyway to be competitive,” Amy Gleason, acting administrator of the U.S. DOGE Service and strategic advisor at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), said in November. “I think there’s a great example of how you can build something where it makes sense for the government to provide the infrastructure, but actually maximizes the power of the private sector.”
Leigh Burchell, vice president of policy and government affairs at Altera Digital Health, said CMS needs to consider incentives to encourage adoption.
“Technologists across the healthcare industry, including EHRs, payers, and consumer-facing apps, have made tremendous progress in just a few months toward the incredibly ambitious goals outlined in the CMS Pledge program,” Burchell told Fierce Healthcare.
“For new health tech ecosystem features to be implemented and widely used by provider organizations, CMS will need to invest in and build into future rate schedules incentives to motivate that behavior. Provider uptake and acceptance of these changes will be a critical last mile in this process,” Burchell said.
In comments to CMS on last year’s Health Tech Ecosystem proposal, the Bipartisan Policy Center noted the need for “clear and predictable reimbursement pathways for high-value digital health products.”
“Many of these products do not fit into outdated benefit categories, creating uncertainty about whether and how CMS will reimburse them. Developers are hesitant to invest time and resources in innovation without clear expectations from CMS regarding coverage,” the group wrote in a comment.
Brian Green, a health tech executive who specializes in AI governance and ethics, noted in a LinkedIn post last fall that the ecosystem initiative currently has no binding contracts, clear enforcement mechanisms, or new dedicated funding, only voluntary efforts.
“No new grants or funding have been outlined, and without future Congressional or CMS funding, the resource-intensive project could stall,” Green wrote. He also said, “Without strong incentives and regulatory requirements, industry self-selection could perpetuate existing gaps, especially in technologies used by small clinics, rural care, and the most underserved communities.”
At the end of the year, CMS announced a new 10-year payment model to encourage the use of technology to treat chronic diseases. The Advancing Chronic Care through Effective and Scalable Solutions (ACCESS) model encourages the use of technology to treat chronic diseases, which many expected would be a boon for health tech companies struggling with reimbursement. This demonstration tests the use of performance-based payments for fee-for-service Medicare participating organizations.
However, a lower-than-expected redemption rate poses a risk of negative returns for model participants, according to a research note from strategy firm Capstone.
