Intermountain Health, Providence, Bon Secours Mercy Health, the Cleveland Clinic, CVS Health, United Health Group and Amazon are among the 60 organizations that have pledged to work to implement interoperability and user-friendly apps as early adopters of the CMS Interoperability Framework.
The 11 health systems or providers committed to accepting patient health information via “kill the clipboard” tools.
The Trump administration secured commitments from the 60 healthcare and information technology firms – including Amazon, Anthropic, Apple, Google and OpenAI – in an announcement during a White House “Make Health Tech Great Again” event last Wednesday. It was hosted with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
At the event, 21 data networks pledged to meet the CMS Interoperability Framework criteria to become CMS Aligned Networks, seven electronic health record vendors committed to facilitate data exchange, and five payers committed to the pledge.
The payers are Aetna, Elevance Health, Humana, UnitedHealth Group and Medicare.
Other early adopters include patient-facing application vendors. The apps are expected to assist in the delivery of services to beneficiaries including diabetes and obesity management.
The organizations said they will work collaboratively to deliver results in the first quarter of 2026.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) applauded the pledge.
WEDI Executive Director Robert Tennant said: “WEDI appreciates the number of early adopters that have signed this pledge and their commitment to the collaborative work to meet the objectives of the pledge. Seeing the list of diverse and important organizations that have signed this pledge signals a real sea change in how the nation’s health care ecosystem will innovate and advance over the next 12-18 months. We fully support the direction of this pledge and look forward to working with CMS and the ASTP to improve health data exchange and improve the delivery of care to patients and reduce administrative burden for health care stakeholders.”
THE LARGER TREND
The White House event builds on the May 2025 request for information (RFI) issued jointly by CMS and the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy (ASTP) to solicit suggestions from stakeholders on ways to modernize the nation’s digital health ecosystem, CMS said.
The RFI generated nearly 1,400 comments from patients, caregivers, providers, payers, technology developers and others to help CMS form the initiative announced last Wednesday.
Email the writer: SMorse@himss.org