Trump unveils online initiative aimed at making it easier to access health records

President Trump on Wednesday unveiled a new initiative to improve Americans’ access to their own health records by enabling them to upload the data to new apps and systems managed by private tech companies.

The plan centers on a pledge signed by more than 60 companies – including tech giants Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Oracle – to create new ways for more easily sharing patient data across the U.S. healthcare system. Prominent healthcare providers such as the Cleveland Clinic have also vowed to participate in the initiative. 

The new system will use artificial intelligence and digital tools such as QR codes and apps that will allow patients to track medications, examine their own health and check in with medical providers. Patients will be able to quickly access their medical records without the traditional roadblocks, such as requiring the use of fax machines to share documents. 

Patients could access records as soon as 2026, the White House said. 

However, the proposal may also spark pushback from privacy advocates who have warned that making patients’ sensitive health data more widely accessible risks making it less secure. 

Mr. Trump touted the initiative at an event in the White House’s East Room. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Medicaid and Medicare Administrator Mehmet Oz, White House crypto czar David Sacks and acting administrator of the Department of Government Efficiency were all in attendance. 

Executives from Oracle, Apple, Google, Samsung, Amazon and Athena Health also participated.

“For decades, America’s healthcare networks have been overdue for a high-tech upgrade and that’s what we’re doing,” Mr. Trump said. “The existing systems are often slow, costly and incompatible with one another. But with today’s announcement, we take a major step to bring healthcare into the digital age, something that is absolutely vital.”

Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid will be in charge of maintaining the system and have said patients will need to opt into it, and pledged that their data will be kept secure. 

For decades, the federal government has sought to give patients greater access and control over their own health records, but those efforts haven’t always gone smoothly. Such efforts have often been waylaid by both technological challenges and privacy considerations surrounding sensitive healthcare data.

The Trump administration is pursuing a different approach by tasking the private sector to make headway on these issues without significant government intervention.