Almost a third of the US population will travel during the holidays. With flu season already in full swing, tracking flu outbreaks is vital to caregivers of small children and the elderly, in addition to those with compromised immunity.

Are you building an application that allows an individual or a provider a comprehensive view of a person’s health care journey? Have you run into data access barriers when trying to link into a person’s health data from a hospital system’s electronic health record (EHR) system?  The federal government will soon release new rules that may open access to this coveted data – helping you provide a fuller value to your company’s digital health solution. 

With almost 20% of our nation’s GDP tied to health care, an often complex and convoluted sector, it is an exciting time, ripe with opportunities to disrupt the status quo and create tech-enabled efficiencies for large scale profit.

The buzz around social determinants of health (SDoH) data is growing. Business leaders need to think through the return on investment (ROI) for incorporating SDoH data capabilities into your platform, product or service.

Health tech disruptors creating in-home monitoring and wearable technologies that collect health data may be interested to know that the FDA is getting into the business of what they call “Real World Data (RWD).” RWD is data, often collected directly from the user or patient and provides information on  their health beyond a clinical encounter, like a visit to the doctor. This month the FDA awarded over $200 million to fund the next five years of their drug surveillance data program, The Sentinel Initiative. 

This February, draft federal rules on health data interoperability, information blocking, health IT certification, and health data exchange related to Medicare/Medicaid conditions of participation were proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC). After releasing these proposed new rules CMS and ONC opened the field to comments and questions from interested and invested parties such as health care companies, providers, and current and future patients.

Since this past February, many health IT companies have been reviewing, commenting on, and trying to understand the business model and production implications of the newly proposed Federal rules on health data interoperability, information blocking, health IT certification, and health data exchange related to Medicare/Medicaid conditions of participation. If your business touches the health IT sector and you haven’t been following these rules, you should be—the final versions of these rules will be game changers for the health IT sector.

It’s probably been a long time since you were knowledgeable about civic processes, but as a business owner the knowledge of how a bill becomes law  can be foundational to your business’s strategic trajectory — knowing when and how to influence policy and regulation can have significant impacts on your bottom line.

By now, you’ve got a solid understanding of a health IT entrepreneur’s strategic business need to stay abreast of health data regulations as they’re developed.  If you understand the connection between regulatory alignment and business growth but are wondering “When should I engage in reviewing, responding to, and influencing regulations?

So you’re all about creating the best IT-based solution to disrupt healthcare. Whether you’re a entrepreneur with a brilliant idea or a programmer bringing an idea to life, the success of your efforts will have to be aligned with the regulatory landscape of health IT legislation and regulation– and most companies need help sooner than they think.