On March 9th, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) finalized two rules that are designed to give patients access to their health data and to increase interoperability among health care providers and payers using health information technology.  The two rules, issued by the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), implement interoperability and patient access provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act.  A primary aim of the 21^st Century Cures Act was to push the healthcare industry to facilitate interoperability of healthcare data across the spectrum, including amongst health care payers, providers, patients and technology vendors.  For decades, HHS has largely relied on the industry to enable interoperability through a market-driven approach that would, in theory, benefit industry while achieving the interoperability goals established by the regulators. Unfortunately, it has been observed that the theory behind a market-driven approach has not been manifested in reality. In reality, the market-driven approach has allowed industry to monetize data by limiting data sharing and, in turn, impeding the benefits of interoperability which rely upon data sharing to promote improved care coordination, better patient outcomes, and material cost reductions. In order to bend the curve toward interoperability, the new HHS rules are designed to provide for binding and specific steps to “free” health care data and recognize the aforementioned benefits.
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