The Gist Healthcare Podcast Friday, August 1, 2025
Aug 1, 2025
Healthcare and technology leaders are joining forces to enhance healthcare data sharing, aiming for improved interoperability by 2026. Meanwhile, a federal judge halts Arkansas's controversial law restricting pharmacy benefit managers. In another development, Swiss drugmaker Roche is exploring the possibility of direct-to-consumer drug sales to reduce costs. Lastly, new AI guidelines are on the horizon, promising to establish best practices in the healthcare sector.
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Ambitious Interoperability Deadline
- The Health Tech Ecosystem Initiative aims to standardize data exchange across EHRs, payer platforms, consumer apps, and national networks by Q1 2026.
- This effort signals coordinated public-private momentum to overcome long-standing technical and privacy barriers to interoperability.
Public-Private Buy-In Drives The Plan
- The initiative centers on adopting CMS's voluntary interoperability framework and expanding access to digital health tools for chronic care and engagement.
- Major health systems, insurers, and tech giants like Epic, Microsoft, and Google are publicly committing to the blueprint.
Why Interoperability Has Lagged
- Interoperability struggles persist because of fragmented infrastructure, legacy tech, and privacy concerns that the initiative must address.
- The pledge recognizes that broad technical and policy alignment is required to make data truly portable and useful.