The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Health Tech Ecosystem has completed its first year and announced the creation of eight new pledge categories as part of ongoing efforts to improve health data access and interoperability. Amy Gleason leads the Ecosystem, which gathered at Health and Human Services headquarters to review progress and present the new pledges.
The event included a theatrical moment meant to signal the end of an era: a coffin prop labeled “RIP CLIPBOARD” was brought onstage while a jazzy recording of “When The Saints Go Marching In” played. Health IT professionals and Medicare staffers participated in the skit, with some wearing veils and others holding white roses.
Federal Medicare official Zac Jiwa prompted the gag by asking, “So who killed the clipboard?” Industry and government participants read from cue cards and denied that any single effort — such as standards implementation, health information exchange networks, electronic health records, or apps — alone was responsible. The scene was designed to illustrate a shift away from paper forms and toward digital data practices.
CMS’s Health Tech Ecosystem — led by Amy Gleason — publicly announced the addition of eight new pledge categories intended to advance the work of making patient data more accessible. The publicly available portion of the STAT report describes the event, the leadership present, and the symbolism used to represent progress, but it does not list the eight categories or provide detailed descriptions of each.
The story connects this announcement to a broader set of commitments made by private health technology companies: STAT referenced a prior pledge to Medicare from industry participants a year earlier, linking to a July 30, 2025 report about companies promising to improve patient data accessibility.
CMS’s move to formalize additional pledge categories demonstrates continued federal engagement with private-sector and health system partners on issues of interoperability and data-sharing. Public-facing events like this one are part messaging and part accountability — intended to show momentum while encouraging more concrete action from vendors and providers.
The skit around the “RIP CLIPBOARD” symbolically underscores a long-standing goal in health IT: reducing reliance on manual, paper-based processes that impede timely data exchange and patient access to records. The presence of Medicare officials and private-sector representatives indicates ongoing collaboration across sectors.
The publicly accessible segment of the STAT coverage focused on the event’s staging, participants, and leadership. It did not publish the full list of the eight new pledge categories, nor did it provide measurable outcomes, specific timelines, or implementation details tied to those categories.
Because the article is presented as a STAT+ exclusive, most of the in-depth reporting that would normally elaborate on the pledge categories, concrete commitments, or program metrics was behind the subscription paywall. Details such as the specific goals for each pledge category, participating companies or organizations, enforcement or monitoring mechanisms, and any deadlines were not reported in the available portion of the source.
STAT’s story points back to an earlier promise from health technology companies to Medicare about improving patient data access. That prior pledge, reported in late July 2025, is part of the background for the Ecosystem’s first-year review and the announcement of new pledge categories.
CMS and its Health Tech Ecosystem have emphasized agenda items including standards implementation, health information exchange networks, electronic health records, and apps — all of which were explicitly mentioned during the event when participants rejected the idea that any single intervention alone had “killed the clipboard.” The exchange indicates CMS’s recognition that progress on data access depends on coordination across multiple technologies and stakeholders.
CMS has signaled the next phase of its Health Tech Ecosystem with the eight new pledge categories, but the publicly available account does not provide the details journalists and industry observers typically look for: the specific content of the pledge categories, named participants, timelines, measures of success, or enforcement approaches.
Further reporting — including the parts of the STAT story behind the STAT+ paywall — likely contains more comprehensive information about the pledge categories and any commitments by private companies or providers. The public excerpt does not offer those specifics, so readers seeking the full list and the operational details of the new pledges would need to consult the complete report or subsequent public releases from CMS.
CMS’s Health Tech Ecosystem marked its first year with a public review and the announcement of eight new pledge categories aimed at advancing health data access and interoperability. The event combined symbolic theater and public remarks from officials such as Zac Jiwa and leadership by Amy Gleason. However, the available reporting stops short of detailing the pledge categories themselves or the concrete steps and metrics that will determine whether the new commitments translate into measurable progress.
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