Experts Say White House Health Tech Initiative Raises Data Privacy Concerns, Urging Healthcare Organizations to Take Stronger Security and Compliance Measures

The recent White House Health Tech Ecosystem Initiative, unveiled on July 30, 2025, aims to drive digital transformation across U.S. healthcare by expanding interoperability and empowering patients through increased access to data. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) secured voluntary participation from leading technology companies, including Amazon, Google, OpenAI, and more, to connect providers, payers, and patient-facing apps through Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) APIs by 2026.

While many experts agree the initiative’s direction is promising, its success will depend on how well organizations integrate identity, privacy, security, and trust into implementation.

“The direction is right, and the near-term goals are realistic in meaningful slices,” said Joel Burleson-Davis, Chief Technology Officer at Imprivata, in a recent TechTarget interview.

Experts note that identity should serve as the foundation of interoperability, enabling secure, phishing-resistant authentication, fine-grained access controls, and the trusted use of shared mobile devices that allow data to move safely and efficiently to the point of care.

While the 2026 goals are achievable in stages, experts caution that expanding participation across healthcare providers, vendors, and consumer apps will heighten privacy and security challenges.

"The expanded app and vendor ecosystem introduces uneven protections—many consumer apps sit outside traditional HIPAA guardrails—so data can move faster than governance if organizations aren't explicit about consent and obligations," said Burleson-Davis.

Because many emerging apps fall outside traditional HIPAA protections, the initiative risks creating potential governance gaps if consent and data-use obligations aren’t clearly defined. Additionally, the API layer itself represents a high-value target for attackers.

"The API layer becomes a high-value target: over-broad scopes, long-lived tokens, bulk-export staging, and proliferating service accounts create an outsized blast radius if not governed with least privilege and strong oversight of third-party and privileged access,” said Burleson-Davis.

Experts advise organizations to treat identity, access, and consent as enforceable policies, limiting data access to specific purposes and verifying patient identity within context. Strengthening access governance should also include credential management, time-bound vendor privileges, session monitoring for sensitive transactions, and continuous auditing to detect misuse.

As the federal government pushes for a more connected health ecosystem, stakeholders across public and private sectors will need to prioritize robust access controls to safeguard protected health information (PHI) and public confidence in healthcare delivery organizations.

Learn more about the initiative on the CMS website.