Happy Birthday, 21^st Century Cures Act!

Yesterday, the 21^st Century Cures Act turned four years old. Unfortunately, like many 2020 birthday celebrations, we are not able to celebrate together in person this year, so I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the promise of the legislation, how far we’ve come in four years, and all the unfinished work ahead of us.

Cures was truly a triumph of the 21^st Century. Increasing partisan gridlock in Congress means that sweeping bipartisan legislation on any issue is rare, and even more rare if it is on health policy – yet Cures passed 94-5 in the Senate and 392-26 in the House. Members on both sides of the aisle came together around the goal of improving discovery, development, and delivery of cures to patients across the country. Cures brought crucial funding for the All of Us Research Program, the BRAIN Initiative, and the Cancer Moonshot. The law also included provisions that are top-of-mind for many eHI members – provisions to improve interoperability, stop information blocking, and update decades-old regulatory pathways for digital health technologies.

Despite the success and ongoing promise of Cures, our experiences with COVID-19 have highlighted that we still have much left to do to ensure a high-quality, effective, and equitable health care system for all. This is a goal to which eHI is dedicated through our policy and advocacy work. Over the summer, eHI’s COVID-19 Federal Policy Work Group crafted recommendations focused on how to fully leverage health IT and digital health to fight COVID-19 and future public health challenges (Building a Modern Health Care System).

Last week, eHealth Initiative (eHI) convened members virtually for our 2020 Government Affairs Retreat, where Members of Congress, virtual care experts, and Congressional staff spoke about pressing health policy issues. We also presented our 2021 Policy Principles, which, in conjunction with eHI’s expert Policy Steering Committee, will direct the organization’s policy and advocacy activities over the upcoming year. Some other highlights from the event:

• Virtual Care Panel Recording
• Member of Congress interviews
  
  • Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE)
  • Congressman Michael Burgess, MD (R-TX)
• Event materials and additional recordings

eHI strives to provide useful and unique educational opportunities and resources to our members. Legislation is key to get the wheels turning, but many of our members are on the ground every day doing the difficult work of transforming the health care system. We hope you join us for our upcoming educational webinars and events:

• Webinar: Expert Perspectives on Virtual Care on December 16^th
• Webinar: SDOH Impact on Equity and Diversity in Clinical Trials on January 12^th
• eHI Annual Meeting on January 26^th – 28^th

So, while we hope you all take a minute today to reflect on how far we’ve come in these past four years, we also hope you will join us in our continued work to actualize the promise of the law.