How will a Biden Presidency Affect Health Interoperability?

By Jake Tunney

Let me gaze into my crystal ball... 🔮

I see a coronavirus vaccine...

and wait...

more interoperability!

In all likelihood, Joe Biden will be the 46th President of the United States. Biden already has a plan together to address the COVID-19 pandemic, but how will Biden affect other aspects of healthcare, specifically the push towards interoperability?

Biden has been very involved in the push towards health information exchange and interoperability. He served as the presiding officer for the 21st Century Cures Act and launched his "Cancer Moonshot." Meanwhile, he has been outspoken during the last four years of the Trump administration. Specifically in his Fortune commentary in March, 2018, he made some high-level critiques of the Trump administration's efforts towards interoperability, while outlining some specific action items. The following list is an excerpt from that article, and I think a good view into what his priorities will be, starting in 2021.

1. Health care providers should be required to provide patients with their full medical record in electronic form within 24 hours of a request, and those providers who do not comply should be held accountable by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for data-blocking as outlined in the 21st Century Cures Act.

2. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) should invest in a patient data system that brings data from disparate formats and care providers into a uniform patient data portal.

3. HHS should focus on expanding their agreements with the electronic health record vendors—Allscripts, athenahealth, Cerner, drchrono, Epic, and McKesson—who participate in Sync for Science.

4. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) should partner with their network of designated NCI-comprehensive cancer hospitals and patient groups, to launch a new cancer data trust—wherein data contributors and data users would agree to set of criteria and act as the “trustees” of the contained EHR, diagnostic, genomic, and outcomes data.

Biden has been a leader around interoperability, especially with a focus on cancer research. The efforts there, if successful, can be applied to the health information ecosystem as whole. With a Biden Presidency, I only expect those efforts to accelerate.

What aspects of interoperability do you think Biden should focus on during his first 4 years?