Overview

• More than 60 organizations, from Google and Amazon to major hospital systems, committed at a White House event to adopt common interoperability standards by Q1 2026.
• CMS unveiled voluntary FHIR-based interoperability criteria and outlined digital tools for diabetes and obesity management, AI symptom checkers and QR-code check-in apps.
• The framework is nonbinding and provides no clear enforcement mechanism, leaving accountability for meeting deliverables by early 2026 undefined.
• Privacy experts, including Georgetown’s Lawrence Gostin, cautioned that expanded sharing of sensitive health data without binding safeguards could enable misuse of patient information.
• Separately, CMS announced upgrades to the Medicare Plan Finder, a National Provider Directory API, digital identity features on Medicare.gov and faster claims access via the Blue Button system.