One Year In, CMS Expands Health Tech Ecosystem With Eight New Interoperability Pledge Categories
At an HHS event marking the initiative's first anniversary — complete with a coffin prop labeled 'RIP CLIPBOARD' — CMS unveiled eight new pledge categories to push patient data access forward without new regulation.
CMS marked one year of its Health Tech Ecosystem initiative at an event at HHS headquarters today, announcing eight new pledge categories designed to advance data interoperability for Medicare beneficiaries.
The initiative, led by Amy Gleason, launched in July 2025 when a first wave of health IT companies voluntarily pledged to improve patient data access. It represents the administration's preferred approach to interoperability: voluntary industry pledges and public accountability rather than new federal rulemaking.
The anniversary event leaned theatrical — a coffin prop labeled "RIP CLIPBOARD" symbolized the intended end of waiting-room paperwork.
Federal Medicare official Zac Jiwa participated alongside industry representatives, and earlier 2026 coverage from the American Hospital Association and Healthcare Dive tracked the first wave of patient-facing tools that emerged from the initial pledges.
The strategic picture
The pledge-based approach now runs alongside two harder policy levers: TEFCA, which crossed one billion exchanged records in June, and active information-blocking enforcement from HHS. Together they form a carrot-and-stick interoperability agenda — and the eight new categories signal CMS intends to keep widening the pledge surface area rather than declaring victory.
For vendors, the practical question is whether pledge participation becomes a de facto market requirement for selling into the Medicare ecosystem. A year of momentum suggests it is heading that way.
Reporting: STAT News, July 28, 2026.
Source
Original reporting: STAT News ↗