Pew Suggests Opportunities for Federal Government to Improve Health Data-Sharing

The Pew Charitable Trusts sent a letter to Representatives Diana DeGette (D-CO) and Fred Upton (R-MI), authors of the proposed “Cures 2.0” legislation, on August 3 with information that could inform future discussions on the bill. The bill would build on the 21st Century Cures Act, passed in 2016, and aims to improve the United States’ capacity to develop new cures or treatments to various diseases and deliver them to patients.

The letter offered data detailing the importance of improving patient matching, supporting electronic data-sharing with public health agencies, upgrading systems that gather vaccine data, and expanding the use of application programming interfaces to share health information with patients and other health care providers.