“Enough talk! It’s time… for action.” This is what we keep hearing from everyone who is taking a skeptical view of the players who sign HHS pledges to advance health technology innovation. It is also what one snail says to another snail in the film “Turbo” with a surprisingly impressive cast for a movie you’ve never heard of. In the One Thoughtful Paragraph below, we reflect on what is likely and what is less likely to happen when these good intentions meet reality.
Other news that gives rise to more snail-like action than we would all prefer:
- CMS intends to open applications for the $50B “Rural Health Transformation Program” included in the One Big Beautiful Bill in early September, according to Dr. Oz. The program is intended to mitigate the impacts of Medicaid funding reforms, and states can apply for grants with proposals that use technology and other resources to support rural hospitals’ workforce and modernize rural hospital infrastructure.
- This week, the U.S. General Services Administration added AI models to its “OneGov” initiative from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI to allow federal agencies to purchase, adopt, and scale AI tools with pre-negotiated contracts. The move supports the White House’s AI Action Plan and commitment to accelerate AI adoption across government operations.
- Big tech is directing more of its spending toward physical infrastructure, like data centers and chip production, according to a WSJ article. In the latest quarter, Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft together invested nearly $100B in capital projects.
What happens if you wake up tomorrow, and your powers are gone? Hm? What then? Turbo, the snail, replies: Then I better make the most of today. This dialogue is between the great Paul Giamatti, who naturally plays the wise snail in the Turbo movie, and Ryan Reynolds, who seems to have a thing about playing obnoxious characters with weird powers in dumb movies. But the line – “I better make the most of today” – could also be the mantra of the HHS team that is trying to get things done before their powers are erased by time, bureaucracy, and the political pendulum swinging. So what is possible in the digital health policy world before time runs out? We point to what was just announced: an early version of an interactive, searchable map of the 9,200 organizations who are participating in TEFCA, the national health data exchange initiative spearheaded by our HHS IT team (ASTP/ONC). This is a good example of what was once deemed a totally-not-gonna-work-but-good-idea that seems to be well on its way to working. What is less likely to work? If you have time, the great Brendan Keeler waxes out the barriers to overall interoperability goals here. I would point to another uphill battle: how to pay for more health tech to thoughtfully modernize the system. This is why the Maverick Health Policy team is co-hosting an event in early September for a group of health tech investors to see what is actually true about how to incentivize health innovation. If you were not invited to that event and wish you were, please send me an email. Until then, we applaud all the players that seem to be tracking what Snoop Dog says as “Smoove Move” in the movie Turbo: Right about now, I’m moving so fast, the whole world’s going in slow motion baby!
