CMS Announces MyHealthEData Initiative to Promote Patient Access to Health Data


On March 6, 2018, CMS announced the MyHealthEData initiative, which aims to give patients easier access to and control over their medical records.

Announcing the initiative, CMS Administrator Seema Verma laid out a future where individuals will have access to their health data wherever they go and be able to share data with the push of a button, with easy access to their entire medical history from birth, including data from health visits, claims, and information gathered through wearable technology.

According to Administrator Verma’s speech and a CMS announcement, the MyHealthEData program is a government-wide initiative that includes the following components:

While Administrator Verma laid out a compelling case for the need to improve health care technology, and the MyHealthEData initiative includes laudable and worthy goals, Administrator Verma’s speech and CMS’s statement were thin on details about the programmatic and policy changes that would be made to implement the program. For example, how will CMS operationalize Blue Button 2.0, and how will patient data be safeguarded? Administrator Verma stated that patients should know that health data will remain “secure and private,” but neither her speech nor the CMS fact sheet give any further details as to how CMS will safeguard data. Nor do they discuss whether the Administration is considering any changes to HIPAA or health privacy regulations to facilitate the ease of data sharing. Furthermore, none of the materials discuss how these initiatives will work with the individual rights to access protected health information afforded by HIPAA. Similarly, it is not clear how CMS will improve the EHR program and interoperability, or how it will work with ONC to ensure the requisite technology is made available to providers.


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National Law Review, Volume VIII, Number 68