President outlines public-private vision for mass digitizing of health data, reinstates Presidential Fitness Test for youth
American patients are protective of their health data, but they tend to like the convenience that electronically sharing such data could bring to their lives. The Trump Administration is taking a shot at reconciling those two conflicting interests—and doing so with a key assist from private technology companies.
What the President has in mind is a populace equipped with smartphone apps run by tech companies and confident enough in those apps to willingly upload much if not all of their personal health data.
“Instead of filling out the same tedious paperwork at every medical appointment, patients will simply be able to grant their doctors access to their records at the push of a button,” Trump said at a White House event July 30 attended by dozens of evidently supportive corporate executives, including leaders from Big Tech players like Google and Amazon as well as top-tier provider institutions like the Cleveland Clinic.
The White House dubbed the event “Make Health Technology Great Again.”
“Just a button and you’re all set,” Trump enthused. “All the information the doctor needs will be immediately transmitted.”
The President assured attendees and watchers of the Wednesday event that the system he has in mind to orchestrate—in close collaboration with private tech—will be “entirely opt-in,” with no centralized, government-run database.
“People are very, very concerned about their personal records. They want to keep them very quiet, and that’s their choice,” he said. “I think it’s a great thing because it’ll be absolutely quiet. Doctors and patients will always remain in control.”
The benefits to millions of Americans will be “enormous,” Trump added. “We will save time. We will save money. And most importantly, we’ll save lives. We’re just going to make people live longer and be a lot healthier.”
Pushups, pullups, sit-ups …
And that was only one major healthcare announcement the White House spotlighted this week.
The next day, July 31, President Trump signed an executive order reinstating a youth physical fitness test like the one officially launched by President Lyndon Johnson in 1996. The test component of that program was softened by Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush before being decisively retired by President Barack Obama for the 2012-13 school year.
To oversee the design and implementation of the test, the order states, a new President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition will be established. The group will have an executive director and as many as 30 members, all appointed by and reporting to the President.
The order names seven sets of actions the council is to recommend to the President:
- Strategies for reestablishing the Presidential Fitness Test, with any appropriate improvements, as the main assessment tool for a Presidential Fitness Award;
- Strategies for the development and promotion of Presidential challenges and school-based programs that reward excellence in physical education;
- Actions to expand opportunities at the global, national, State, and local levels for participation in sports and engagement in physical fitness;
- Bold and innovative fitness goals for American youth with the aim of fostering a new generation of healthy, active citizens;
- Campaigns and events that elevate American sports, military readiness and health traditions;
- Opportunities at the global, national, State and local levels that expand participation in sports and emphasize the importance of an active lifestyle and good nutrition; and
- Strategies to address the growing national security threat posed by the increasing rates of childhood obesity, chronic diseases and sedentary lifestyles, which threaten the future readiness of the United States workforce and military.
The test will be administered by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., well-known as a fitness buff in his own right, for students enrolled in public schools.
The awards program recognizing top fitness achievers is likely to feature the President himself, at least initially.
Read the full executive order here. View the signing ceremony, which was attended by a number of professional athletes, here.
‘Patients should be very worried’
Reaction to the rebirth of the fitness test is sure to follow over the coming days. Until then, Axios reporter April Rubins reminds: The old presidential fitness test was “a source of anxiety and shame for more than a few kids, who ended up feeling like they weren’t strong enough for the president’s (or Arnold Schwarzenegger’s) purposes.”
Meanwhile the White House’s move to prime the public for uploading personal health data has drawn some fire.
“There are enormous ethical and legal concerns,” Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University law professor who specializes in public health, told the Associated Press. “Patients across America should be very worried that their medical records are going to be used in ways that harm them and their families.”
“This scheme is an open door,” added Jeffrey Chester at the Center for Digital Democracy, “for the further use and monetization of sensitive and personal health information.”
Other outlets have reported hearing similarly heated misgivings.
For its part, the Administration seems ready to fight over the matter.
“For decades, bureaucrats and entrenched interests buried health data and blocked patients from taking control of their health,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Wednesday. “That ends today. We’re tearing down digital walls, returning power to patients and rebuilding a health system that serves the people. This is how we begin to Make America Healthy Again.”
Dave P. has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for more than 30 years, frequently concentrating on hospitals, healthcare technology and Catholic communications. He has also specialized in fundraising communications, ghostwriting for CEOs of local, national and global charities, nonprofits and foundations.