President Trump on Wednesday announced the development of a health care records system that he said would allow Americans to more easily and broadly share their personal health information with health care providers.
“Today the dream of easily transportable, electronic medical records finally becomes a reality,” Mr. Trump said at a White House event that included the leaders of dozens of technology companies.
The administration is working with some of the largest American companies on the record-keeping system, including Google, Amazon, Apple and OpenAI. The Centrs for Medicare and Medicaid Services will oversee the effort.
Many health care providers already allow patients to upload their medical information and schedule appointments through phone apps and online portals.
Mr. Trump and top federal health officials said the information-sharing program would be an effective replacement for a system that often involves arduous and redundant paperwork that patients fill out when visiting different providers.
The system, which aims in part to help Americans with diabetes and obesity, would also include artificial intelligence assistants to help Americans monitor symptoms and navigate health care options.
But the effort to push Americans to upload sensitive medical information to a more centralized system also raised questions about how the Trump administration would ensure privacy. Mr. Trump appeared aware of those concerns on Wednesday.
“The system will be entirely opt-in, and there will be no centralized government-run database, which everyone is always concerned about,” Mr. Trump said. “People are very, very concerned about personal records. They want to keep them very quiet, and that’s their choice.”
“It will be absolutely quiet,” Mr. Trump added.
But some privacy and technology experts said the program, while admirable, would still rely on voluntary participation. The announcement, they added, did not offer much detail about how patients would be able to access their medical histories in ways that would keep those records private.
