Will Patients Be Better Consumers When They Can Access Their Health Data?

On February 11, 2019, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released two highly anticipated rules focused on increasing patient access to their own health information—both clinical (that is, electronic medical records) and administrative (that is, health insurance claims). These rules relate to several different initiatives, including MyHealthEData, Blue Button, and patient-facing application programing interfaces under 21st Century Cures. They share a common goal of allowing patients to go online and download a copy of their health information for themselves or to share with others (including patient transmission of data directly to a third party).