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CMS Aims to Give Patients Access to Health Records

— Patients should be able to 'share their data with whomever they want'

MedpageToday

WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration launched a program Tuesday aimed at giving patients more control over their own healthcare records.

The initiative, called MyHealthEData, "will help to break down the barriers that prevent patients from having electronic access and true control of their own health records from the device or application of their choice," the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) . "Patients will be able to choose the provider that best meets their needs and then give that provider secure access to their data, leading to greater competition and reducing costs."

Patients deserve to receive an electronic copy of their health record and to "be able to share their data with whomever they want, making the patient the center of the healthcare system," the release continued. "Patients can use their information to actively seek out providers and services that meet their unique healthcare needs, have a better understanding of their overall health, prevent disease, and make more informed decisions about their care."

As part of the initiative, CMS Administrator Seema Verma also on Tuesday announced a Medicare patient records initiative known as Blue Button 2.0. In her prepared remarks, Verma said that although Medicare patients have for a long time had the ability to download their health information from the CMS Blue Button site, what they got was in the form of an excel spreadsheet or a PDF file, "without any context or help in understanding what the data is telling them."

The new version, Blue Button 2.0, "is a developer-friendly, standards-based API [application programming interface] that enables Medicare beneficiaries to connect their claims data to secure applications, services and research programs that they trust," she said. "Beneficiaries will maintain complete control in how and when their data is used, but the potential benefits to our recipients are endless."

One thing Blue Button could do is enable "creation of health dashboards for Medicare beneficiaries to view their health information in a single portal, or allowing beneficiaries to share complete medication lists with their doctor to prevent dangerous drug interactions," Verma said.

She also had a message for insurers. "I call on all insurers to do as we have done today, and give patients their claims data electronically," she said. "Over the course of the year, we will be reexamining all of our partnerships and relationships with health insurers to find ways to make it clear that we are serious about putting patients first and giving them control of their records, not merely in words, but in deed." The agency also intends to mandate that patients' data follow them when they are discharged from the hospital.

"For those in the healthcare industry that are already working to make health records, safe, secure, easily accessible, and easily understandable to patients, we give you our full support and we applaud your efforts. And we will work with you to continue on this path," Verma added. "However, for those of you that still subscribe to the outdated idea that you can deny patients access to their health records, I encourage you, in the strongest way, to change course and accept that those practices will come to an end."

The American Medical Association (AMA) applauded CMS's actions. ""We are encouraged by CMS Administrator Seema Verma's announcement to increase the availability of patient information," AMA President David Barbe, MD, . One way to do this is to remove unnecessary regulation and focus on interoperability ... There is room for improvement, and we are excited that Administrator Verma agrees."

The announcements by CMS are in line with remarks that Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar made Monday at the annual policy meeting of the Federation of American Hospitals. Although substantial numbers of providers have adopted electronic health records, that often has meant simply transferring what was previously on paper to the computer, he told hospital executives. "Unless we put the technology in the hands of patients themselves, the real benefits will never arrive."

"We've already got the means to empower patients, but it's not yet happened ... the key will be not [to have] the federal government micromanaging things," he said. For example, patients "ought to have their records in a useful format" and they need to be able to bring their records from one provider to another.