Apple committed to a major White House initiative aimed at revolutionizing how Americans access and manage their healthcare data. The federal government partnered with more than 60 technology and healthcare companies in an ambitious effort to create a “smarter, more secure and more personalized healthcare experience,” the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said Wednesday during a White House “Make Health Tech Great Again” event.
The Health Technology Ecosystem plan looks like one of the most significant federal pushes to modernize U.S. healthcare infrastructure in decades. Alongside Apple, major participants include Amazon, Google, OpenAI and Anthropic, signaling broad industry support. Apple will develop apps for the plan’s “Kill the Clipboard” initiative.
And as expected, the prospect of government and major corporations handling healthcare data raises privacy concerns for patients.
Apple role in White House digital healthcare plan: ‘Kill the clipboard’
Apple will play a key role in what the government calls the “Kill the Clipboard” initiative, a subsection of the overall Trump administration and CMS plan. The iPhone giant will work to eliminate the frustrating experience of repeatedly filling out paper forms at medical appointments. Instead, Apple and its partners — including Google, Samsung, CVS Health and UnitedHealth Group — will develop digital check-in methods that automatically populate patient information.
The companies pledged to “empower patients to retrieve their health records from CMS Aligned Networks or personal health record apps and share them with providers via QR codes or Smart Health Cards/Links.” This means iPhone users could potentially walk into any participating healthcare facility and instantly share their complete medical history through their device. That would eliminate the need to repeatedly recall and write out medical information.
Done well and securely, the initiative could be a big step toward Apple’s longstanding vision of putting health data control in users’ hands. It could potentially transforms routine healthcare interactions from paperwork-heavy experiences into seamless digital encounters powered by the devices Apple users already carry.
Broader vision for patient empowerment
The Trump administration initiative focuses on two main areas that could significantly impact how Apple users interact with healthcare systems. First, it promotes a new CMS Interoperability Framework designed to make health information flow seamlessly between patients and providers. Second, it aims to increase availability of personalized health tools that give patients better information to make healthcare decisions.
“For decades, bureaucrats and entrenched interests buried health data and blocked patients from taking control of their health,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “That ends today. We’re tearing down digital walls, returning power to patients, and rebuilding a health system that serves the people.”
CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz emphasized the urgency of modernization. He said patients “have been burdened with a healthcare system that has not kept pace with the disruptive innovations that have transformed nearly every other sector of our economy.”
New health apps coming to iPhone
Apple users can expect a wave of new health applications over the coming months. That’s because 30 companies committed to developing consumer apps around the new framework. These applications will offer enhanced capabilities including diabetes and obesity management tools, conversational AI assistants to help check symptoms and navigate care options, and streamlined appointment scheduling.
All participating apps must use secure digital identity credentials and comply with CMS interoperability standards to access and exchange health records safely. The apps will be designed to work with CMS Aligned Networks, or healthcare networks that meet the government’s new data-sharing criteria.
Privacy concerns
It comes as no surprise that the prospect of the Trump administration and major corporations potentially getting their hands on patients’ health data raises concerns about privacy. If you look at the comments under the official X.com announcement posts, you can see a large percentage refer to people fearing a loss of control over their information.
“So does this mean even more people will have better access to my health records than I do?” asked one user. “I mean most of our health records have already been hacked anyways, right? Why not provide them with more opportunities to steal personal information?”
MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN:
Today, @POTUS, alongside @DrOzCMS, @SecKennedy, and @DavidSacks, officially launched the CMS Digital Health Tech Ecosystem. pic.twitter.com/E2W2guOKKR
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) July 31, 2025
“No. I am not going to comply or be enrolled or be surveilled or be a data point,” said another person about the program, which is said to be opt-in/opt-out. “I will give up Medicare first.”
Timeline and expectations
The initiative builds on extensive stakeholder input. Nearly 1,400 comments received from patients, healthcare providers and technology developers followed a request for information issued in May 2025. CMS expects to see measurable results from participating companies by early 2026. And some features might become available sooner.
CMS plans to add an app library to Medicare.gov highlighting trusted digital health tools. It will also work on enhanced features like a modernized Plan Finder and faster access to Blue Button claims data. And it developes infrastructure to reduce the time between when medical claims are processed and when they become accessible to patients and app developers.
Twenty-one healthcare networks pledged to meet the CMS Interoperability Framework criteria. And 11 health systems and seven electronic health record providers committed to supporting the data exchange efforts. This broad participation suggests Apple users will have widespread access to the new capabilities across different healthcare providers and systems.
David Snow, an expert on Apple hardware and software, writes on a variety of technological and cultural topics for Cult of Mac. They include Apple news, technology buying guides, and features about computer setups and Apple TV shows and movies.
With 30 years of experience covering technology and other subjects, he has written and edited for numerous print and online publications, including CMP Media, TechTV.com, CNET, Wired News, Red Herring magazine, Law.com, The National Law Journal and Law Technology News magazine. Among other roles, he served as executive editor of the Law.com network of websites and editorial director, technology, for ALM Media.
Snow graduated with a B.A. from Syracuse University with majors in magazine journalism and psychology. While there, he worked as a reporter for The Daily Orange newspaper and associate editor of Equal Time magazine.
Founder of the blog At the Waterline, he can be reached on X (formerly Twitter) via @atthewaterline and on Mastodon via @dsnow.
