HHS Finalizes HTI-5 Health IT Deregulatory Rule Projected to Save More Than $1.5 Billion
WASHINGTON — The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on October 26 released the HTI-5 final rule, formally titled Health Data, Technology, and Interoperability: ONC Deregulatory Actions to Unleash Prosperity. The rule is projected to save more than $1.5 billion in regulatory costs.
According to HHS, the HTI-5 final rule significantly reduces administrative burdens for health IT developers participating in the ONC Health IT Certification Program, freeing resources that developers can apply toward enhancing user experiences for patients and clinicians. The rule aligns with President Trump's Executive Order 14192, Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation, and Executive Order 14267, Reducing Anti-Competitive Regulatory Barriers.
"American doctors and patients need better technology, not more Washington paperwork," said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. "The Trump Administration is eliminating unnecessary regulations that cost more than $1.5 billion and hold back innovation. We are freeing America's health technology innovators to build better tools, lower costs, and help doctors spend more time caring for patients."
"Through HTI-5, we have taken decisive action to significantly lower the administrative compliance burden for developers so that they can spend more of their time developing solutions that improve interoperability, automation, and better healthcare for Americans," said Tom Keane, M.D., National Coordinator for Health IT.
HHS said that, as outlined in the 2026 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, ONC intends to continue addressing chronic disease, increasing market competition, and lowering healthcare costs by improving the access, exchange, and use of electronic health information. Future proposals are expected to advance interoperability and electronic health information sharing through standards adoption, additional updates to the Certification Program to support expanded uses of application programming interfaces (APIs) and potential successor technologies, and targeted conditions of certification. Comments submitted in response to the HTI-5 proposed rule's information blocking proposals remain under consideration as part of HHS' ongoing efforts to address and eliminate information blocking, the department said.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：医生在诊室使用电脑处理电子健康记录（资料图）。Shixart1985，CC BY 2.0，经维基共享资源。 / A physician using a computer for electronic health records in her office (file image). Shixart1985, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
