Each Wonks’ Corner, a member of Blue Shield’s government affairs team dives into a current policy topic. See our previous Wonks’ Corner blogs here.

In July, the Trump Administration made a splash by declaring their intent to “Make Health Tech Great Again.” At this event, a series of voluntary commitments were made by the likes of Epic, Amazon, UnitedHealth Group, and Google (among others) to improve data sharing between patients and providers and increase patients’ access to personalized digital health tools.

These are important goals, which Blue Shield of California strongly supports. But now that press attention and industry buzz has subsided, questions remain on whether this Administration will be successful in generating meaningful, lasting improvement in how health information is shared for the benefit of patients and their treating providers. Here is my take:

  • This is not the Trump Administration’s first attempt to address data sharing. It is a signature issue carried over from his first term, and an area where they clearly want to make progress. While it remains to be seen what action will come from the voluntary commitments of (mostly) large, established stakeholders, keep the timing in mind. By rolling out this announcement in 2025 with deliverables next year, the Administration has runway to pivot to rulemaking if this voluntary effort does not realize its goals.
  • On the heels of the “Make Health Tech Great Again” commitments, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced it would undertake active enforcement against health care entities that block the access, exchange, and use of electronic health information (aka information blocking). By prioritizing this – to date, latent – enforcement authority, HHS is signaling that it is looking at data sharing from all angles and willing to leverage its existing authorities to advance the flow of health information. 
  • Don’t discount the work the Administration can undertake unilaterally to build “foundational infrastructure” that supports data sharing across the health care system. For example, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced its commitment to build an interoperable, national provider directory, use modern identity verification solutions, and participate in a health information network. These efforts could also reduce friction in the system and move the needle on data sharing.

And finally, from a California perspective, many of the criteria in the new Interoperability Framework released alongside the July stakeholder commitments are directionally aligned with the principles and requirements of the California Data Exchange Framework (DxF). While there is no direct impact on the DxF, it reinforces that both state and federal regulators are calling on stakeholders to accelerate their engagement in data sharing to empower patients and improve care.

With all this in mind, keep a close eye on this space – we haven’t seen the last from the Trump Administration on data sharing!