From left: Hal Wolf, HIMSS president and CEO; CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz; Kimberly Brandt, COO and CMS deputy administrator; and Amy Gleason, administrator and senior advisor, DOGE and CMS.
Photo: Susan Morse/HFN/HIMSS
LAS VEGAS - CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz is advocating for agentic AI for every member of Medicare and for patients to use more digital tools to improve health and lower costs.
Technology should be used more in the beginning of the care cycle and in the home, said Oz, speaking before a crowd of healthcare professionals at the HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition here on Thursday.
Healthcare is inflationary, Oz said. Doctors are making about the same amount of money as the rate of inflation, but hospitals are at twice that rate, due in large part to manpower issues, he said.
"We have such a wonderful opportunity to use technology to be a deflationary force," Oz said. "I'm very confident we can get better quality care."
Oz also asked healthcare professionals in the audience to advocate for tech for patients.
"I'm here to recruit you," he said. "We have a real crisis."
Throwing money at a problem will only go so far, Oz indicated.
"We look at the opportunity of technological advances," he said.
HIMSS needs to embrace the reality, and CMS needs to reach people, Oz said, to save lives and manage a $1.7 trillion business.
Oz was speaking with Hal Wolf, president and CEO of HIMSS, on "A Revolutionary Vision for American Healthcare Transformation: CMS's Roadmap for Now and the Future." With Oz were Kimberly Brandt, COO and CMS deputy administrator, and Amy Gleason, administrator and senior advisor for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and CMS.
The federal government recently gave $50 billion to help rural hospitals. But "the current system will not work," Oz said.
Even with the funding, rural hospitals have a hard time recruiting behavioral health professionals to rural areas, Oz said.
"I can't buy mental health practitioners," Oz said.
CMS wants to move patients beyond Dr. Google to take charge of their health.
Patients should be able to scan a QR code and bring their health data to their provider, Gleason said.
"Kill the clipboard," she said.
Email the writer: SMorse@himss.org