Hard and Soft Powers with Micky Tripathi

For the past 20 years, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, the ONC has played a pivotal role shaping and regulating the health tech market. On the eve of the election, Micky Tripathi joined me to discuss the agency’s recently expanded role. Now, two months later—though it feels like a decade—the future is uncertain. Will the ONC and ASTP continue as market regulators and opportunity catalysts, or is a new direction on the horizon?

Here’s what we covered:

• The government’s role in shaping and regulating the health tech ecosystem
• AI in healthcare: balancing the risks of misuse vs. the risk of “missed uses”
• Health information sharing: why Micky is optimistic about the future
• Can technology take the pain out of prior auth?

Micky thinks we are standing on the edge of a transformative era:

“We are just at the beginning of the most exciting decade...health information technology can really start to show… the return on investment for patients. We've done a lot of hard work over the last 10 years… [With that foundation in place] we have the opportunity to say there's an ROI here for patients.”

Relevant Links

• Blog post on ONC reorganization: ONC’s Next Chapter
• TEFCA overview
• Forbes interview: Where is interoperability headed?
• Healthcare Dive: HHS AI Task Force Takes Shape (March 2024)
• Blog post by Micky: Getting real about information blocking and APIs (October 2024)

About Our Guest

Micky Tripathi is the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, and Acting Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where he leads the formulation of HHS technology and data strategy and coordinates technology policies, standards, programs, and investments.

Dr. Tripathi has over 20 years of experience across the health IT landscape. Prior to joining the federal government he served as Chief Alliance Officer for Arcadia, a health care data and software company focused on population health management and value-based care, the project manager of the Argonaut Project, an industry collaboration to accelerate the adoption of FHIR, and a board member of HL7, the Sequoia Project, the CommonWell Health Alliance, and the CARIN Alliance.

Dr. Tripathi served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative (MAeHC), a non-profit health IT advisory and clinical data analytics company. He was also the founding President and CEO of the Indiana Health Information Exchange, a statewide HIE partnered with the Regenstrief Institute, an Executive Advisor to investment firm LRVHealth, and a Fellow at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

He holds a PhD in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Master of Public Policy from Harvard University, and an AB in political science from Vassar College. Prior to receiving his PhD, he was a Presidential Management Fellow and a senior operations research analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in Washington, DC, for which he received the Secretary of Defense Meritorious Civilian Service Medal.

Source: https://www.healthit.gov/leadership/micky-tripathi-phd-mpp

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