The Trump administration unveiled a health partnership between the White House and private tech companies, aiming to simplify health tracking and record access for Americans. However, some have raised concerns about the ethics and legality of the plan.

The administration said more than 60 companies, including Google, Amazon and Apple have signed on to the plan. Major health care groups like UnitedHealth Group and CVS Health have also agreed to help with the plan.

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What is the goal of the initiative?

The administration’s new proposal will focus on diabetes, weight management, conversational artificial intelligence that helps patients and digital tools that register patients for check-ins or track medications. President Donald Trump announced the plan aimed at improving the speed and affordability of healthcare for Americans, according to The Associated Press.

“For decades America’s health care networks have been overdue for a high tech upgrade,” 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 health care into the digital age.”

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will oversee the program. CMS officials said patients will need to opt in to allow the system to share their medical records and data. They stressed that the data will be secure.

According to the AP, the officials said the program will help people, allowing them to quickly find their records without having to use fax machines or older technology.

“We have the tools and information available now to empower patients to improve their outcomes and their healthcare experience,” CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said.

Why do some have concerns?

Some legal experts raised concerns that the new system may put convenience over keeping medical records private. Georgetown University law professor Lawrence Gostin said this should concern Americans.

“There are enormous ethical and legal concerns,” Gostin told the AP. “Patients across America should be very worried that their medical records are going to be used in ways that harm them and their families.”

Some also said the administration didn’t offer details on whether patients would be able to access their medical data in ways that would keep them private. David Holtzman, a technology and privacy expert, also told The New York Times that much of what Trump announced is already in place.

However, Trump tried to address those concerns during the Wednesday event announcing the program. According to The Times, he reaffirmed that data will only be available if someone opts in and that it will be “quiet.”

“People are very, very concerned about personal records. They want to keep them very quiet, and that’s their choice,” Trump said. “It will be absolutely quiet.”

How would the program work?

Acting administrator of the Department of Government Efficiency, Amy Gleason, also attended the announcement event. She said patients will be able to use a QR code to transfer their medical records to providers and doctors. An AI assistant would then help the patient assess documents they get from their doctors.

Gleason said the new plan isn’t about eliminating doctors, just helping to “fill the gap between visits.”

One of the companies that has signed on to the program, the weight loss company Noom, said this can help them provide better care. CEO Geoff Cook told the AP his company would be able to access a person’s data from apps like Apple Health.

In Noom’s case, Cook said they would be able to look at a person’s medical tests and labs which would help develop an AI-driven analysis of what might help that person lose weight.

The White House said they expect the program to begin in early 2026.

President Donald Trump’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is partnering with tech giants and healthcare conglomerates to form a broad new online medical database, the administration announced Wednesday.

The CMS Digital Health Tech Ecosystem will include a national healthcare directory, data sharing networks and partnerships with a wide collection of private corporations.

“Today the dream of easily transportable electronic medical records finally becomes a reality,” Trump announced in a Wednesday press conference. “With today’s announcement we take a major step to bring healthcare into the digital age.”

Apple, Google, Samsung, Amazon, OpenAI, Anthropic, Oracle, and supplement company Noom are among the private sector collaborators that Trump announced will be participating.

The close ties with Big Tech spooked privacy and medical freedom advocates, already perturbed by a previous announcement from Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. regarding wearable health monitors.

“Trump’s new ‘Digital Health Tech Ecosystem’ includes all the usual suspects: OpenAI, Amazon, Apple, Google… because nothing says ‘healthcare revolution’ like handing your medical data to Big Tech, right? What could possibly go wrong?” content creator Jason Bassler asked on X.

Trump’s new ‘Digital Health Tech Ecosystem’ includes all the usual suspects: OpenAI, Amazon, Apple, Google… because nothing says ‘healthcare revolution’ like handing your medical data to Big Tech, right? What could possibly go wrong? pic.twitter.com/M0yQX700hB — Jason Bassler (@JasonBassler1) July 31, 2025

Another creator, popular commentator Health Ranger, called the system a “kill switch.”

Trump is launching a “kill grid” using Big Tech, AI and Big Medicine to enforce compliance with vaccines, pharmaceuticals and biometric surveillance technology such as “wearables.” The entire point of this is to efficiently exterminate low-income and left-wing Americans in… https://t.co/8tsU3g5MIW — HealthRanger (@HealthRanger) July 31, 2025

Trump, however, appears to be aware of those concerns as he addressed them directly.

“The system will be entirely opt-in and there will be no centralized, government-run database, which everyone is always concerned about,” Trump said.

HHS also rejected the notion.

“The CMS digital health ecosystem is not a centralized government database. As CMS has made clear, the ecosystem is a framework to support secure, standards-based data exchange between existing health systems, with privacy and patient control at its core. The goal is to empower patients and providers, not to collect or centralize personal health data. All activities remain compliant with HIPAA and federal privacy protections,” an agency spokesperson told the Daily Caller.

Kennedy touted the technological innovation, comparing potential outcomes for Indonesia, which he lauded as a country that has rapidly increased the lifespan of its people. (RELATED: ‘Extinction-Level’: MAHA Warns Pesticide Immunity Provision Could Mirror Anger-Inducing Bill From 1980s)

“There are two major innovations that allowed them to achieve that extraordinary outcome and one of those was to disincentivize people from eating processed foods,” Kennedy said, outlining the country’s program where they paid citizens to eat healthy and penalized them for eating processed foods.

“The other innovation that really transformed Indonesia,” Kennedy continued, “was allowing people control of their individual health records.”

Kennedy explained that Indonesia’s leaders introduced him to the public health application they use which “shows your height, your weight, your blood type, your BMI, your cardiac markers, your diabetes markers, your cholesterol, and any kind of individualized treatments.”

“So if you go to a doctor in another town, he doesn’t do what we have to do here, which is to sit there with a clipboard and a fax machine in order to get your health records,” Kennedy said.

During the press conference, Trump’s crypto czar, David Sacks, touted the ability of artificial intelligence (AI) to diagnose diseases and stressed the importance of getting more data into AI systems.

“The key here is the unlocking of the data because the more data that AI has, the better it performs,” Sacks said.

The program is being spearheaded by Dr. Oz and his chief CMS deputy Amy Gleason.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration will launch a new program that will allow Americans to share personal health data and medical records across health systems and apps run by private tech companies, promising that will make it easier to access health records and monitor wellness.

More than 60 companies — including major tech companies like Google, Amazon and Apple, as well as health care giants like UnitedHealth Group and CVS Health — agreed to share patient data in the system. The initiative will focus on diabetes and weight management, conversational artificial intelligence that helps patients, and digital tools such as QR codes and apps that register patients for check-ins or track medications.

“For decades America’s health care networks have been overdue for a high tech upgrade,” President Donald Trump said Wednesday at a White House event with company CEOs to announce the new system. “The existing systems are often slow, costly and incompatible with one another, but with today’s announcement, we take a major step to bring health care into the digital age.”

The system, spearheaded by an administration that already freely shared highly personal data about Americans in ways that tested legal bounds, could put patients’ desires for more convenience at their doctor’s office on a collision course with their expectations that their medical information be kept private.

“There are enormous ethical and legal concerns,” said Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University law professor who specializes in public health. “Patients across America should be very worried that their medical records are going to be used in ways that harm them and their families.”

Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who will be in charge of maintaining the system, said patients will need to opt in for the sharing of their medical records and data, which will be kept secure.

Those officials said patients will benefit from a system that lets them quickly call up their own records without the hallmark difficulties, such as requiring the use of fax machines to share documents, that prevented them from doing so in the past.

“We’re going to have remarkable advances in how consumers can use their own records,” Dr. Mehmet Oz, who leads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said during the White House event.

Popular weight loss and fitness subscription service Noom, which signed on to the initiative, will be able to pull medical records after the system’s expected launch early next year.

That might include labs or medical tests that the app could use to develop an AI-driven analysis of what might help users lose weight, CEO Geoff Cook said. Apps and health systems also will have access to their competitors’ information, too. Noom would be able to access a person’s data from Apple Health, for example.

“Right now you have a lot of siloed data,” Cook said.

Patients who travel across the country for treatment at the Cleveland Clinic often have a hard time obtaining all their medical records from various providers, said the hospital system’s CEO, Dr. Tomislav Mihaljevic. He said the new system would eliminate that barrier, which sometimes delays treatment or prevents doctors from making an accurate diagnosis because they do not have a full view of a patient’s medical history.

Having seamless access to health app data, such as what patients are eating or how much they are exercising, also will help doctors manage obesity and other chronic diseases, Mihaljevic said.

“These apps give us insight about what’s happening with the patient’s health outside of the physician’s office,” he said.

CMS also will recommend a list of apps on Medicare.gov that are designed to help people manage chronic diseases, as well as help them select health care providers and insurance plans.

Digital privacy advocates are skeptical that patients will be able to count on their data being stored securely.

The federal government has done little to regulate health apps or telehealth programs, said Jeffrey Chester at the Center for Digital Democracy.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and those within his circle pushed for more technology in health care, advocating for wearable devices that monitor wellness and telehealth.

Kennedy also sought to collect more data from Americans’ medical records, which he previously said he wants to use to study autism and vaccine safety. Kennedy filled the agency with staffers who have a history of working at or running health technology startups and businesses.

CMS already has troves of information on more than 140 million Americans who enroll in Medicare and Medicaid. The federal agency recently agreed to hand over its massive database, including home addresses, to deportation officials.

The new initiative would deepen the pool of information on patients for the federal government and tech companies. Medical records typically contain far more sensitive information, such as doctors’ notes about conversations with patients and substance abuse or mental health history.

“This scheme is an open door for the further use and monetization of sensitive and personal health information,” Chester said.

The Trump administration tried to launch a less ambitious electronic record program in 2018 that did not get finalized during his first term and did not have buy in from major tech companies.

President Donald Trump has announced a new private health tracking system, aimed at streamlining patient access to health records and wellness monitoring.

The proposed system is a joint venture between the federal government and Big Tech, reported PBS on Thursday. The system aims to facilitate patients in tracking and sharing their medical records among doctors, hospital systems, and health apps. The details of the system were revealed at a White House event named “Making Health Technology Great Again.”

“For decades America’s health care networks have been overdue for a high tech upgrade,” stated Trump calling existing systems “slow, costly and incompatible.”

Trump Pushes High-Tech Health Overhaul With Big Tech and CMS Support

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will maintain the system, drawing health data from Big Tech companies like Amazon AMZN, Google GOOGL, and Apple AAPL, as well as big health companies like the Cleveland Clinic and UnitedHealth Group UNH. Patients will have to opt-in to share their medical records and data, which CMS assures will be kept secure.

Once a patient is in the system, their information can be shared across participating apps or health networks. The Trump administration argues this will provide a more complete view of the patient’s health.

At the same press conference, officials reassured Americans that the system, once developed, would be “strictly opt-in” and would not involve “any centralized government database.”

Notably, a similar proposal was put forward by the Trump administration in 2018, but it never came to full fruition. The newly announced plan is set to launch in the first quarter of 2026, with 60 companies already on board.

Opt-In or Not, Critics Question Safety of Proposed Health Data System

Despite the potential benefits, patient advocates and ethicists have raised concerns about patient privacy and data security. Jeffrey Chester at the Center for Digital Democracy said, “This scheme is an open door for the further use and monetization of sensitive and personal health information.”

Hayley Tsukayama, Associate Director of Legislative Activism at EFF, told The Register, “Any initiative that proposes to collect sensitive data, particularly vast amounts of health information and medical records, must ensure that no one uses that information in ways people don’t expect.”

Samsung, P3 Health Partners Taps Analytics To Support Smarter, Timely Interventions

The new health data tracking system is another significant development in the healthcare technology sector. Earlier in July, Samsung SSNLF announced plans to acquire Xealth, a digital health platform that integrates various tools into provider systems.

Meanwhile, companies like P3 Health Partners are leveraging advanced analytics and integrated clinical-claims data to help providers gain a better understanding of their patients’ burden of illness. The company provides actionable insight to enable physicians to make more informed decisions, intervene in a more timely fashion, and personalize their care plans, especially for seniors with complex or chronic conditions.

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.