Healthcare stakeholders have a critical opportunity to shape the future of digital health technology in Medicare. Providers, payers, technology companies, life sciences organizations, and all other stakeholders are invited to provide public comments on the digital health ecosystems used in the Medicare market in response to a Request for Information (RFI) from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy/Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ASTP/ONC). Comments are due by June 16, 2025.

Understanding the RFI

On May 13, 2025, CMS, in partnership with ASTP/ONC, published an RFI seeking to understand common pain points and areas for improvement in the digital health ecosystem, particularly as it relates to secure electronic access to personal health information for Medicare beneficiaries. The RFI is relevant to healthcare providers, payers, technology companies, and life sciences organizations because CMS and ASTP/ONC are seeking input on how to improve secure access to health data, simplify digital identity requirements, reduce administrative burdens, and promote the adoption of innovative digital health tools.

Efforts to make health information more interoperable, support value-based care, and ensure that digital solutions are accessible and user-friendly for Medicare beneficiaries could lead to new technology standards, reporting requirements, and business opportunities

The agencies are particularly interested in making health information more interoperable, supporting value-based care, and ensuring that digital solutions are accessible and user-friendly for Medicare beneficiaries. These efforts could lead to new technology standards, reporting requirements, and business opportunities across the healthcare sector.

The RFI is part of a broader push by CMS and ASTP/ONC toward increasing the flow of health information among patients, providers, and payers via “smartphone applications and other modern tools.”

Key Areas for Comment

Key areas that CMS and ASTP/ONC are seeking comment on include:

Interoperability and ease of information sharing between different health data storage systems

Encouraging the use of uniform digital identity credentials instead of different “proprietary logins” that patients need to manage for each health data storage system (e.g., different patient portals for each provider)

The impact of and areas of improvement for existing digital health APIs like CMS’s Blue Button 2.0 and other Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR)-based APIs

Mitigating the burden of technology requirements on providers and payers

Increasing patient, provider, and payer engagement with digital health products

CMS Remarks

CMS hosted an in-person listening session on June 3, 2025, to discuss the RFI with healthcare stakeholders. CMS noted that the RFI reflected its modernization agenda to “accelerate digital health innovation, strengthen data security, enhance program integrity, and drive operational efficiencies” within Medicare and Medicaid. Alongside the discussion, CMS announced plans to modernize digital health infrastructure by developing a national provider directory, modernizing identity verification for Medicare.gov, expanding the Blue Button 2.0 API, making the Data at the Point of Care tool widely available, and further advancing trusted data exchange efforts.

Deadline and Submission Requirements

Deadline: June 16, 2025

June 16, 2025 File Code Reference: CMS-0042-NC

CMS-0042-NC Method: Electronic submission preferred at regulations.gov

Electronic submission preferred at regulations.gov Suggestion: Annotate comments with question labels (e.g., “PR-1”)

The RFI represents a rare opportunity to directly influence federal policy on healthcare technology. Organizations that engage now may help shape regulations that affect the industry for years to come.

The authors would like to thank Amritha Ramalingam and Sabrina Li Shen for their contribution to this Client Alert.

About four months ago, the University of South Florida and Tampa General Hospital expanded their partnership with Medical Microinstruments Inc. (MMI) to bring the company’s Symani Surgical System to the academic medical center.

MMI states that the robotic surgical device pushes the limits of soft-tissue open surgery, giving surgeons greater precision and control. It also gives surgeons the chance to restore the quality of life for more patients, including those with cancer-related lymphedema (swelling of body tissues due to lymph fluid buildup) who need microvascular and lymphatic repair.

Cleveland Clinic, New York University, the University of Pennsylvania and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles also are using the system.

The Expanding Reach of Surgical Robotics

Specialized uses like this illustrate the ever-expanding applications of robotic surgery platforms as health care providers continue to leverage the technology to reduce surgical complications, improve safety, shorten recovery times for patients, reduce length of stay and more.

At the same time, robotic surgery platforms like Intuitive Surgical’s pioneering da Vinci system and its latest offering, da Vinci 5, competing systems from Stryker, Medtronic and Johnson & Johnson are broadening their capabilities in operating rooms.

Since gaining the first FDA clearance nearly 25 years ago, da Vinci robots now are routinely used in many laparoscopic soft-tissue procedures, including cardiac, urologic, gynecologic and general surgeries. The company reports that about 2.63 million surgical procedures were performed in the U.S. last year using da Vinci systems — a 17% increase from 2023.

Artificial intelligence (AI) also is being integrated into robotic surgery devices to automate surgical tasks like suturing or tissue dissection. These systems aim to improve consistency and reduce surgeon workload, notes an August 2024 NIH report.

3 Ways The Robotic Surgery Market Will Change This Year

1 | Competition will heat up.

After long enjoying an overwhelming market share, Intuitive is facing more competitors this year. Not only is the competition coming from well-established medtech companies like Stryker, Medtronic and J&J, but also from new market entrants with specialty applications and modular concepts with smaller devices that are easier to move around.

In October, CMR Surgical received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) marketing approval for its Versius Surgical System to be used in gall bladder removal cases in adults.

Other surgical robotics companies to receive FDA authorization over the past year include Distalmotion, Medical Microinstruments, Moon Surgical, Procept BioRobotics and Virtual Incision.

2 | Look for expanded use of surgical robots in ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs).

There has been a rush to install orthopedic robots in ASCs, and that trend will continue this year as large-joint replacement continues to grow, Morningstar analyst Debbie Wang recently told MedTech Dive. Stryker and Zimmer Biomet are adding shoulder features to their surgical robots, the report notes. Spine surgery also has the potential to benefit from an expanding focus on robotics, according to Wang.

Jeffrey Brand, executive director at global architecture and design firm Perkins Eastman, recently told ASC News that his firm established a 16-surgical-suite ambulatory center focused on robotic surgery for cancer patients. And Saum Sutaria, M.D., CEO of Tenet Health, said on a recent earnings call that he sees significant room for expansion of services that can be offered in the ambulatory surgery setting and that robotics will be part of that shift.

3 | AI will continue to play a larger role in surgical robots.

Stryker’s Mako Shoulder robotic surgical assistant for shoulder replacement and Mako Spine for spine-replacement surgeries use an AI technology called Blueprint that helps surgeons better understand shoulder deformities and their patients’ pathology to predict potential challenges and evaluate different implant options.

Intuitive Surgical has an AI tool for the da Vinci 5 called Case Insights that can analyze surgical procedures and provide surgeons with post-surgical feedback on the part of the procedure that takes the longest and the areas where the movements aren’t as smooth or fluid.

In the future, the company wants to provide surgeons with feedback in real time, Brian Miller, executive vice president and chief digital officer at the company, recently told Modern Healthcare.

Three things are certain in this world: death, taxes and health care predictions for 2025. Each year we review a slew of health care outlooks and, after sifting through them, here are a few of the more interesting hypotheses.

1 | Address workforce challenges and strengthen core business technologies.

Workforce will continue to be a key focus for hospitals and health systems. More than half (58%) of health system executives expect workforce challenges, such as talent shortages, retention issues and the need for upskilling to influence their organizational strategies in 2025, according to Deloitte’s 2025 U.S. Health Care Outlook.

While workforce challenges remain a top concern, the urgency has decreased compared to two years ago when 85% of executives cited these issues during a substantial exodus of clinical staff, as noted in previous Deloitte U.S. health care outlook surveys. Despite this, many health systems still face clinical talent shortages, clinician burnout and rising labor costs. In 2025, health system leaders have an opportunity to rebuild trust and restore a sense of meaning, value and purpose in their employees’ job.

Takeaway

The report suggests health care leaders can:

Redesign work teams. Health systems can establish comprehensive interdisciplinary care teams, provide curated training programs and map out new career paths for their staff to enhance employees’ connection to the organization and acknowledge their important roles.

Health systems can establish comprehensive interdisciplinary care teams, provide curated training programs and map out new career paths for their staff to enhance employees’ connection to the organization and acknowledge their important roles. Invest in cost-saving technologies. According to the Deloitte workforce technology study, generative AI and automation technologies can cut in half the amount of time revenue cycle staff spend on mundane tasks and give bedside nurses 20% more time to spend on direct patient care. Health systems should consider leveraging these technologies and exploring new work modalities, such as virtual nursing, to enable remote work possibilities for clinical staff.

According to the Deloitte workforce technology study, generative AI and automation technologies can cut in half the amount of time revenue cycle staff spend on mundane tasks and give bedside nurses 20% more time to spend on direct patient care. Health systems should consider leveraging these technologies and exploring new work modalities, such as virtual nursing, to enable remote work possibilities for clinical staff. Prioritize equity in design. All technology and operational investments and implementation projects at health systems should help ensure equitable access, experience and impact for all users — consumers, clinicians and administrative staff. Understanding the needs and impacts of different populations from a technology or operational change and intentionally designing to meet those needs or mitigate those impacts can help ensure broader adoption.

2 | Getting upstream of patient burnout is critical.

Many patients who live with chronic disease face symptoms of burnout that can lead to detrimental disengagement from their care, notes a recent essay by Tony Vahedian, CEO of CCS, a provider of clinical programs and home-delivered medical supplies for those living with diabetes or other chronic conditions.

The coming year will be a critical time for providers and payers to focus on this issue and find ways to provide care in a coordinated and personalized manner, he explained. Diabetes, for example, is a disease of overwhelming, nonstop decision-making, requiring people to stay one step ahead of countless factors each day, including diet and exercise, medications, device readings, doctors’ appointments, insurance coverage and more. Add the usual stressors of family, work and socializing, and it’s a recipe for burnout, also known as “diabetes distress,” which affects 30%-40% of people with diabetes.

Takeaway

A key step will be to bring together stakeholders this year to help providers and payers better understand how a person’s ability to engage in self-care and collaborative care can be tied to their level of physical, emotional and administrative distress in coping with the disease day to day. The challenge will be to better understand how to develop proactive, person-centered solutions that address the root causes of distress before they lead to detrimental disengagement.

3 | Here’s where AI will make a tangible impact.

Look for the dust to begin to settle around the hype and grandiose promises regarding artificial intelligence in health care and gen AI, notes a Wolters Kluwer Health forecast.

The top three growth AI areas to watch include improving workflows, enhancing clinician workforce development and patient safety, according to Stacey Caywood, Wolters Kluwer Health CEO. Caywood expects there will more synergies and partnerships to emerge between AI and complementary technologies that serve as a force multiplier for the potential of AI to drive efficiency in the clinical workflow, provide relief from burnout and deliver value for health systems.

Takeaway

Amid staffing shortages, 2025 will see AI helping future clinicians get on a fast track to practice-readiness. Nursing education tools are being wholly rethought to leverage the capabilities of AI. For example, AI has the potential to boost nurses’ licensure prep so students learn from mistakes with smarter, more personalized reinforcement. Look for AI chatbots to transform virtual reality training by providing lifelike conversations with virtual patients. AI also will accelerate the development and adoption of clinical practice changes as hospital nursing leaders turn to AI to power the often-cumbersome process of updating nursing practice protocols.

Also, look for AI to play a bigger part in patient safety this year, Caywood says. In 2025, she anticipates that solutions will dig deeper into live health data to identify disconnects in care that often are overlooked and can impact patient safety. “Imagine an AI ‘helper app’ that works 24/7 in the background to identify instances where health care providers may miss a potential test or therapy for a patient,” she says.

America, and for that matter the world, is facing a growing challenge in caring for two expanding groups of patients — those 60 and older and patients with such chronic diseases as cancer, diabetes and obesity.

Across the globe, the 60-and-older population is increasing quickly and will surpass 2 billion by 2050, according to the World Health Organization. Meanwhile, caring for the 60% of U.S. adults who have at least one chronic disease accounts for $3.7 trillion in annual health care costs, states the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The ability to monitor health and deliver care outside traditional medical settings could significantly reduce this expenditure, notes a recent CB Insights report. The analysis examines home care tech markets that providers should prioritize over the next three to five years.

We explore some technologies CB Insights analysts say providers should scrutinize over the next one to three years and what’s been happening in these sectors.

4 Home Care Technologies to Explore

1 | At-home Infusion

This technology enables patients to have intravenous treatments like dialysis at home. Wirelessly connected infusion pumps share data with providers to platforms that monitor treatment regimens. Providers are turning to these devices to support convenient, consumer-focused care. Investments in this tech sector are up significantly over the last two years, with mega funding rounds going to Somatus ($325 million), Quanta Dialysis Technology ($245 million) and Monogram Health ($160 million).

Key Takeaway

Providers should be selective before investing in this technology to ensure that comprehensive solutions support key considerations like ease of administration, infection monitoring and prevention, and tools to determine post-infusion status, the report states.

2 | Virtual Clinical Exam Rooms

Exam tools ranging from digital stethoscopes to comprehensive digital medical kits provide diagnostic-quality equipment to the home to support virtual visits. The virtual care equipment market was worth $3.5 billion in 2021, according to a Global Market Insights report and is estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 17.3% through 2028.

Key Takeaway

Advanced exam tools, especially those with built-in artificial intelligence, will become a more prominent component to support remote diagnosis and treatment decisions.

3 | Digital Therapeutics

These solutions combine evidence-based research with digital technologies to provide treatment options for ongoing medical issues that can be addressed in the home. The technology provides apps and digital tools to support issues ranging from mental health to the management of diseases related to gastroenterology, endocrinology and cardiology. Digital therapeutics companies have received more than $1.1 billion in funding over the past five years and the sector is evolving quickly as Food and Drug Administration-approved, clinically validated therapies find their way to the market.

Key Takeaway

Monitor this sector to identify therapies that deliver benefits across multiple specialties and conditions. Evaluate the technology based on ease of use, whether the solutions provide easy-to-grasp content and meet the disparate needs of the populations you serve.

4 | Home Care Management Platforms

This technology supports the transition from an acute care setting to the home to help ensure effective care coordination. These platforms traditionally have focused on care for those with chronic conditions and the elderly, but newer solutions also focus on parents who are caring for infants. The technology ranges from supporting the scheduling of ongoing care to monitoring whether patients have been attending to existing care needs.

Key Takeaway

Evaluate these systems to ensure that investments will fit with your comprehensive growth strategy for managing multiple patient populations, including the elderly, patients with chronic diseases and acute care patients.