Apple, Google, OpenAI, and more than 60 other companies have signed a voluntary agreement with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to address a historically complicated issue in US healthcare: fragmented, inaccessible medical data.
The idea is to make it easier for patients to access their records, for providers to share information, and for developers to build AI-powered tools that work across the entire healthcare system.
Disconnected systems, frustrated patients
Electronic health records (EHRs) were supposed to simplify healthcare. Instead, they often live in silos that don’t talk to one another — one portal for your lab results, another for prescriptions, and a third for that urgent care visit two years ago, and so on.
The new CMS-led initiative:
- Standardizes how providers exchange data.
- Encourages developers to build consumer apps on top of those standards.
“For too long, patients in this country have been burdened with a healthcare system that has not kept pace with the disruptive innovations that have transformed nearly every other sector of our economy,” said CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz in a statement during a White House “Make Health Tech Great Again” event. “With the commitments made by these entrepreneurial companies today, we stand ready for a paradigm shift in the US healthcare system for the benefit of patients and providers.”
What’s changing: AI tools, unified records, and faster access
The participating companies, including Apple, Google, Amazon, Anthropic, and OpenAI, have committed to delivering measurable progress by the first quarter of 2026. CMS will publish a scorecard to track adoption across participating vendors and 11 health systems.
The effort includes:
- Unified data formats: A common set of APIs will allow any trusted app to access records once patients give consent, regardless of where the data is stored.
- AI-powered apps: Assistants that summarize lab results, flag symptoms, or automate insurance paperwork are on the roadmap.
- Improved access for seniors: Streamlined enrollment for Medicare plans and simplified provider switching are part of the rollout.
Companies like Noom are already preparing to use these standards to enable sharing lab results and syncing data within their apps.
“Your labs data for one provider group might be here, another one might be here,” said Geoff Cook, CEO, Noom. “Under this CMS framework, patients can use any trusted app to retrieve the complete medical record wherever it’s stored.”
Privacy first, results soon
Security and patient privacy remain key pillars. Mike Krieger, CPO at Anthropic, told Bloomberg that Claude will allow users to “connect into these systems and, with patient consent, be able to bring in their health information.”
Apple reinforces this focus with its emphasis on-device processing and tight user controls.
The partnership may be voluntary, but with pressure mounting for practical health tech solutions, this marks the most significant federal-industry alignment on EHRs in over a decade. If the companies stay on track, we might just see a future where your full medical history fits in one app, and actually helps you use it.
As data becomes more accessible, healthcare organizations are turning to generative AI to support diagnoses, streamline workflows, and enhance patient care. Read more about how GenAI is reshaping healthcare.