Unpacking the 21st Century Cures Act.

The 21st Century Cures Act packs a wallop. The landmark federal legislation, first enacted in 2016, touches seemingly every corner of healthcare. Indeed, some 1,400 lobbyists representing more than 400 organizations worked at both houses of Congress during the Act’s formative days.

The wide-ranging and bipartisan bill has three primary goals:

1. Standardize technology to foster better information sharing between organizations.
2. Accelerate research and the advancement of drugs and medical devices.
3. Unblock patient access to electronic healthcare records (EHR).

From there, vast reform tentacles spread out across the Act and the healthcare system itself. Billions of dollars are allocated for brain and cancer research and the opioid epidemic fight. The Act also provides some of the most significant mental healthcare reforms in nearly half a century. Provisions to help deal with what is a crisis in both mental illness and care include

• Protections to ensure that insurance companies cover mental health treatments equally with physical health treatments.
• Mental health programs implemented for children, early intervention, suicide prevention, and opioid treatment and prevention. 
• Clarification of HIPAA rules that may stand as barriers to communication between caregivers and providers.

Indeed, the Act represents important legislation for the one in five adults in the United States who experience a mental illness in any given year—nearly 44 million Americans.

A huge win for patients

Two of the banes of healthcare’s current existence are its antiquated technology and its siloed mentality for storing and sharing patient information. Neither represent patient-first thinking. Far from it.

This will take some time. But with the Act’s initiative to standardize technology, the all-to-convenient silos will come down and interconnected pipelines for information sharing will go up. In theory, more personalized care will follow.  

But will standardized technology itself compel healthcare orgs to actually exchange information? A fair question. And it’s why the third initiative is such an important win for patients. Details of the “information blocking” reform became clearer with the expansion of the Act in October 2022. Per the Act, healthcare organizations are now compelled to provide patients with access to their own healthcare records at no cost and immediately upon request. That reform, and its ripple effect, may well be the main driver of healthcare’s long-overdue makeover. 

Remember, doctors and therapists require complete patient medical histories to be able to make the best treatment decisions, provide the highest quality care, and maintain care continuity. Unfortunately, many patients’ records are scattered around a variety of disconnected healthcare organizations. That structure creates information barriers which lead to potential delays in care, frustrating both patients and providers.

With the Act, full, unimpeded, and free access to patients’ own healthcare records is now the law. Patients are empowered to collect, own, and share their own records and make sure those delays never happen no matter when or where they seek care.

Teeming with possibilities

For patients, the upside to records access and ownership goes beyond avoiding delays in care. When patients and their providers have complete records from which they can collaborate, preventive health care and holistic care—two approaches our current healthcare system is virtually unequipped to manage—are unleashed. Now we’re talking about the ability to use preventive health screenings more effectively to create greater awareness of, and earlier warnings for, preventable diseases like diabetes and heart disease.

You can also see the synergy at work between mental health and patient-records reforms, particularly in the field of holistic healthcare. With comprehensive records in one place, patients and providers can more easily see and make the connections between mental and physical health. Pathways to caring for the mind, body, and soul—together—are now open for travel.  

Finally, with better and more timely care and preventive medicine more the norm (thanks better use of technology and more streamlined information sharing), a chance to finally reverse healthcare’s upward spiraling of costs is at hand.

At MediSprout, we’ve had our eyes on the 21st Century Cures Act since day one of our company. We couldn’t give it a bigger hug. At its core, the Act is recognition that our healthcare system is in desperate need of course correction. A position we have long held. At its zenith, the Act has the potential to transform healthcare. Now in place are reforms that finally align technology and information and point both to a patient-centric healthcare model. A vision we share.

The significance of the 21st Century Cures Act can’t be understated. It has the potential to save millions of lives and help patients, providers, and organizations thrive within a more transparent and equitable healthcare ecosystem.

Transforming? You bet.

Ben Putland is the chief operating officer of MediSprout.