Partner Mel Soliz recently moderated a panel at The Sequoia Project and Carequality Annual Meeting, bringing together health information experts nationwide to explore the policy and technical challenges of managing patient privacy preferences across complex health data exchange environments. The session, “Solving the Consent Puzzle: Navigating Policy, Technical Barriers, and Computable Consent Standards,” examined why electronic consent management and data segmentation remain difficult to implement at scale, particularly amid varying state and federal regulations. Leveraging expertise from her roles as co-chair of The Sequoia Project’s Privacy & Consent Workgroup and a member of the Carequality Advisory Council, Mel guided the discussion on emerging standards, practical strategies for automating consent workflows, and opportunities to honor patient preferences consistently throughout various health information systems. The Sequoia Project is a national...

Several closely watched court cases are testing how existing legal frameworks governing health data apply to a fast-moving regulatory environment. In Fierce Healthcare’s new special report, Mel Soliz weighed in on the latest disputes poised to shape policy and business across the industry. Mel shared her take on the growing slate of interoperability lawsuits involving antitrust, information blocking, unfair competition, tortious interference with business relationships, and patient data access, highlighting how controls on health information may raise both compliance and market-access questions. As litigation moves forward, court decisions could give providers, EHR vendors, and health tech companies clearer guidance on how overlapping laws apply to data-sharing practices. “There can be entirely legitimate reasons to restrict access, including privacy and security,” Mel said. “But the legal question is...