Data portability and building user trust

Why Can't EHRs Be More Like HubSpot? The Healthcare Data Portability Problem I've been exploring HubSpot CRM recently to integrate some of our falcon health data, and it's been a revelation. Coming into this, I had limited direct experience with CRM platforms - I briefly used Salesforce at my first startup but hadn't touched similar systems since. Naturally, I approached HubSpot with some worries. My worries proved completely unnecessary. What impressed me most wasn't the sales functionality - yeah, I am not good at sales, but the remarkable data portability. The data import process was intuitive with an excellent validation interface. But the real game-changer? One-click API key generation. With that key, I could navigate and manipulate complex data relationships with surprising ease. For those outside healthcare, this might seem unremarkable. But if you've worked in healthcare IT, you understand why I'm amazed. A few weeks ago, a respected healthcare executive asked for my thoughts on selecting EHR vendors. I emphasized just one crucial factor: choose the EHR with the least lock-in effect. No lock-in effect - is it too much to ask? When will we reach a point where changing EHR systems becomes as straightforward as switching workflow tools? Many companies I've worked for regularly change their productivity platforms. Yes, these transitions have challenges, but it wasn't a million-dollar project. What's telling is that EHR-to-EHR transitions are so extraordinarily difficult that they've become the subject of academic research. A recent systemic review paper [2] outlines the "remarkably expensive, laborious, personnel devouring, and time consuming" nature of these transitions, requiring meticulous planning across ten critical domains from financial considerations to data migration and patient safety. Recent regulatory developments like the 21st Century Cures Act and information blocking rules aim to improve this situation, but progress remains slow. As healthcare organizations rush to embrace AI and other emerging technologies, I worry we're not paying enough attention to the looming lock-in problems these integrations might create. Will today's AI investments make future system transitions even more difficult? Without prioritizing data portability from the start, we risk building even higher walls around our healthcare data silos, precisely when we need more fluidity, not less. [1] https://lnkd.in/e_7XMQjg [2] https://lnkd.in/e9kD_hDK

When reviewing an online community platform, the first thing I check isn't member-facing features. It's not staff-facing features, like moderation tools. It's not the community that exists around it. It's not the code. The first thing I check is data portability. Do I have access to the full community data, including email addresses and passwords? Is it in a format I can use? Do I have access to it at a moment's notice? If I don't, the rest doesn't matter. I'm building 10, 20, 30, 100-year communities. When I was 16, I wanted to improve the sports community I had launched by moving to new software. The remotely-hosted solution I used wouldn't let me. I didn't lose much - but I lost enough, and I was really unhappy about it. From that day, I decided it would never happen again. Platforms come and go. Companies come and go. They grow, they take investment, private equity takes a piece, they go public, they go bankrupt, the products stop being maintained. But the community data is sanctified. It's forever.

The brands that win won’t be the ones collecting the most data— but the ones customers choose to share it with. Today, I opened a website on my phone and was greeted with a full-screen consent prompt. Not once, but again—despite having visited before. This isn’t friction. It’s fatigue. For users, for marketers, for developers, for regulators. And the core problem isn’t just cookies or pop-ups. It’s the underlying architecture of the internet—where identity is fragmented, consent is siloed, and users are treated like strangers at every touchpoint, even if they’ve already verified once before. Even worse, users are missing out on recognition and losing trust with how (and where) brands are managing their data (ex. The latest massive data hack, 23andme, etc…). Latest data suggests up to 30% conversion fallout on a first-time site visit. But change is here. 🔐 Users expect control over their data—and transparency from the brands they engage with. 🤖 AI is raising the bar—demanding real-time personalization and verified identity signals for both humans and agents. 📉 The cost of low trust—abandonment, churn, wasted spend—is too big to ignore. In this new era, identity and consent aren’t checkboxes. They’re a relationship. Reusable. Interoperable. Owned by the user. And for companies that want to remain relevant—or simply survive—this shift isn’t optional. It’s why we’re building trust ID.