Today in health, it more detail on Apple's health record sharing functionality. Is released this week. My name is bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week in health. It a channel dedicated to keeping health it staff current. And engaged. Have you signed up for cliff notes yet? We designed it for you. If you have great find someone else, or you want to share that with and have discussions with about the show and have them sign up as well. If you haven't, let me tell you a little bit about it. We send out an email 24 hours after each show errors. It has bullet points. It has a summary. It has one to four video clips. That you can get a feel for what we talked about on the show. And determine whether you want to watch the whole thing or not. We really did design it with you in mind. We know you can't listen to every show. But we know you want to stay current. And this is one way to do that, to sign up it this week, health.com and click on the subscribe button in the top right-hand corner. All right here is today's story. It's actually multiple stories, but I'm going to start here. Apple's health data sharing feature is now live here's some excerpts from the article Apple's health data sharing features now live in the latest version of iOS. Allowing some users to give their clinicians information from their phones, health app. Via their electronic health records. The integration will initially work with six major EHR companies. Can you guess which one's not here? You'll figure it out in a minute. Allscripts, Athena health, Cerner CPSI, Dr. Krono and Meditech expanse. Having meaningful conversations with a doctor about everyday activities during a visit is a key part of managing health. But it can be difficult to remember the details said apple during a press release. About the new feature in June. Apple also announced on Tuesday that iOS 15 we'll allow users to store verifiable health records in the health app based on the smart health card specification. And an upcoming software update. They can also choose to add verifiable COVID 19 vaccination records as a vaccination card. And apple wallet. To present to businesses, venues and more so the company. Why it matters. Patients at participating hospitals and health systems were already able to view data about immunizations lab results, medications and vitals directly in their health app. Now. The new feature allows information to flow in the opposite direction. Think about that. So I have it as the patient and I could share it with the next doctor or health system that I happened to see. Users in the us can choose to share certain types of health data. Like heart rate, detected falls, hours of sleep or exercise minutes. With their doctors for more informed conversations said the company users can also share information at their discretion with other apple users. Such as family members, partners, or other individuals who may find it beneficial for the person receiving this information, shared data is presented. With important insights and trends highlighted, sit apple. The health app uses the smart on fire framework, which allows it to more easily integrate with the HRS. Okay. So that's the story. Let me give you my, so what on this? I love this functionality. This is patient centered interoperability. It puts the patient. In charge of downloading, storing, and sharing their medical record and information with whomever they choose. It could be another physician could be another health system. It could be a third party. Who is helping them to live a healthier life. I love this. I love this. I love this. The FTC came out with a strong message to not HIPAA covered entities like apple, that they would be fined for Phi information breaches, chime in health leaders, applauded this move. And As I said, when I covered the FTC ruling. It's good. Absolutely. It protects patient data, but it will slow down innovation. So be it. It's a natural trade off. Apple has proven that they can secure data except last week. A third-party not only exposed PII from apple personal identifiable information. But just about every other wearable out there as well. Over 60 million wearable fitness tracking records exposed via unsecured database. It was PII. Name age, weight, height, gender geolocation data. That is how the internet economy really works. API is connected to the source data enabled by the end-user and then not secured by a company other than apple, but reflects poorly on apple. I make this point to say, this is what health systems we're worried about. The information blocking rule or information sharing rules. And the 21st century cures act require health systems to share data with third party apps. These third-party apps may have good practices, or they may not. The health systems won't know, the app will make a request and the health system is required by law. Under the threat of penalties, financial penalties. To provide that data. The data then gets out into the wild breach gets reported. And they look at the data and they say this came from that health system. So the fingers get pointed back to the health system. When in reality, they're just following the law. They are allowing that data. To be shared per the law, as it is written. I know this sounds like I'm talking about both sides. My mouth. So let me be clear on this. I'm a huge proponent of information sharing and the information sharing rule. I'm a huge fan of patient directed inter-operability engage patients with their data was the reason HIPAA was created portability of the record. This opens a world of possibilities to health. I'm also a fan of fines for companies that request the data and don't secure it. Let me tell you what I think is missing here. I believe that we should tear the request providers and build a clearing house for trusted requests, trusted actors in this equation. Apple is a trusted source. What about downstream sources that request the data from apple. Same thing, a trusted source clearinghouse. This will require a change to 21st century cures final rule on information blocking. I'm not suggesting an overhaul, but we need some mechanism for identifying trusted actors. In the healthcare data world. It can't be open to anyone. With that being said free, the data is still my mantra. Get it in the hands of the patients, I'm firmly against those who look down on patients as not smart enough to handle their own information. If banks thought that way, it would be silly. And it is silly for healthcare organizations and EHR providers to think this way. Give me my damn data as e-patient Dave has said many times, let me be the captain of my own health ship. That's all for today. If you know someone that might benefit from our channel, please forward them a note. They can subscribe on our website this week, health.com or wherever you listen to podcasts, apple, Google, overcast, Spotify, Stitcher. You get the picture. We are everywhere. We want to thank our channel sponsors who are investing in our mission to develop the next generation of health leaders vmware hill-rom starboard advisers mcafee and aruba networks thanks for listening that's all for now