The Future of Data Portability and Interoperability

Moving Beyond Portals: Why traditional consumer-facing health portals fail when they ask patients to proactively manage data, rather than delivering concrete outcomes. The "Jobs-to-Be-Done" Lens: How data portability must be embedded directly into high-value operational workflows—like second opinions, care transitions, and avoiding duplicate lab work—rather than treated as a standalone feature. Decentralized Execution: Why solving friction requires decentralized systems and incentive alignment across payors, providers, and patients, rather than centralized data hubs. John is the founder and CEO of Hashed Health, a company creation fund building healthcare technology and services startups, often in partnership with health systems like Vanderbilt University Medical Center. For years, John was one of the most visible advocates for patient-controlled health data—Hashed ran Distributed Health, a global conference on decentralized healthcare infrastructure, and John co-authored Blockchain in Healthcare (HIMSS/CRC Press) where he wrote about topics related to decentralized medical identity and health records. A repeat founder and operator, John's startup experience includes empactHealth.com (acquired by Medibuy/GHX), InVivoLink (acquired by HCA), Bramble (acquired by Turquoise Health) and Sub Pop Health (acquired by MedeAnalytics). He started his career in the trauma center at Vanderbilt. The Panel Doug Slakey and Seth Hobgood will give their reaction and discuss what is working today vs. what is total hype. Seth brings additional operational credibility to the panel. His career has centered on building interoperability and product engineering solutions for healthcare organizations. His experience spans L7, C-CDA, XML, X12, dynamic RESTful FHIR APIs, and Enterprise Master Patient Index (EMPI) systems for unifying patient records. Having integrated with major EHR systems like Epic, Meditech, and Cerner, he brings battle-tested technical expertise to healthcare data portability.Doug brings deep clinical leadership and system design expertise to the panel. He serves as Chair of Health Systems Science at Belmont University’s Frist College of Medicine and is the co-founder and CEO of LifePathEI, where he is building the Personal Life Record to intelligently unify fragmented medical and wearable data. A veteran transplant surgeon, global health advisor, and former Chief of Surgical Services for Advocate Aurora Health, Doug combines three decades of clinical operations with a passion for person-centered innovation. The War Rooms Peer-to-peer table discussions to share what’s working, what failed miserably, and how to execute over the next 12 months. Expect candid debate, actionable insights, and plenty of war stories from fellow Nashville health tech leaders on the front lines.