On this episode of Tell Me Where IT Hurts, host Dr. Jay Anders reconnects with Steven Lane, MD, MPH, Chief Medical Officer of Health Gorilla and one of the most respected voices in interoperability. With over 30 years of experience as a clinician and informaticist, Dr. Lane has been at the forefront of nearly every major effort to improve health information exchange, from early electronic health record innovations to today’s national interoperability frameworks.
Dr. Lane recalls his early days in practice, when physicians experimented with typing emergency department notes into networked Macintosh computers, offering an early glimpse of how digitized records could transform care. His career later brought him to Sutter Health, where he helped implement Epic across ambulatory and inpatient settings, launched the first MyChart patient portal, and became one of the first to exchange records using Epic’s Care Everywhere. Those experiences led him into national policy roles, where he helped shape Carequality, the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), and other initiatives advancing interoperability.
Today, Dr. Lane carries that vision forward at Health Gorilla, one of the first organizations designated as a Qualified Health Information Network (QHIN) under TEFCA and also a Qualified Health Information Organization (QHIO) under California’s Data Exchange Framework. Built on a FHIR-based architecture, Health Gorilla connects clinicians, payers, public health entities, and digital health innovators across the country, enabling secure, standards-based exchange at scale.
The conversation explores both the progress and challenges of interoperability. Dr. Lane emphasizes that digitizing and sharing data was only the first step. The real value is in delivering actionable insights. He highlights Health Gorilla’s work on AI-powered chart summarization to reduce clinician burden and emphasizes the importance of expanding individual access to data, enabling patients to better manage their own health information.
“Interoperability has come a long way, but it is still not invisible. We do not yet have the same seamless exchange of health data that we take for granted in banking or telecommunications.”
Steven Lane, MD, MPH
Chief Medical Officer of Health Gorilla
The discussion also explores AI’s role in healthcare delivery. While optimistic about the potential of AI assistants and summarization tools, Dr. Lane cautions that their success depends on context, data quality, and thoughtful integration into workflows. He sees opportunities for AI to support both clinicians and patients, but warns against the risks of poor fidelity and unvalidated data exchange.
When asked what single change he would make to improve health IT, Dr. Lane points to identity management as the foundational barrier to improvement. Solving patient and provider identity at scale, he argues, would unlock more seamless, trusted data exchange across the healthcare ecosystem.
Show Notes
Among the topics covered:
- Led early Epic implementation and first MyChart deployment at Sutter Health
- Early adopter of Epic Care Everywhere and the Carequality framework
- National policy leadership through Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), HHS Health IT Advisory Committee, and The Sequoia Project
- Health Gorilla named a TEFCA-designated QHIN and California QHIO
- Focus on enabling treatment exchange, individual data access, and public health reporting
- Chart summarization and AI as tools to reduce burden and surface actionable insights
- Balanced perspective on ambient listening and AI agents
- “If you could change one thing…”
- And more…
Show Links
- Dr. Steven Lane on LinkedIn
- Health Gorilla on LinkedIn
- TEFCA
- Dr. Jay Anders on LinkedIn
- Medicomp Systems on LinkedIn
- Tell Me Where IT Hurts on Healthcare NOW Radio