Category: News

Velatura Public Benefit Corporation Applauds Trump Administration’s AI Action Plan

Announcements, News, Press Releases

Washington, D.C. — July 29, 2025 — Velatura Public Benefit Corporation applauds President Trump’s newly released artificial intelligence strategy, “Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan.” This comprehensive framework represents a bold, forward-thinking approach to ensuring American leadership in the rapidly evolving AI landscape while prioritizing innovation, accountability, and economic prosperity.

“President Trump’s AI Action Plan represents a watershed moment for American healthcare innovation—boldly prioritizing outcomes over bureaucracy while maintaining essential safeguards. By accelerating FDA pathways, establishing national standards, and investing in critical infrastructure, the Administration has created precisely the environment needed to unleash the next generation of AI-powered medical breakthroughs,” said Tim Pletcher, CEO of Velatura Public Benefit Corporation. “This approach mirrors our AI Censu framework that judges AI by its measurable impact rather than imposing burdensome input regulations. The Plan’s emphasis on public-private collaboration and bias-free systems will transform how we develop, deploy, and evaluate healthcare AI while ensuring America maintains global leadership in this critical technology frontier.

Velatura is especially encouraged by the Plan’s emphasis on several key principles that our organization has championed, many of which reflect recommendations we provided in our response to the Office of Science and Technology Policy’s (OSTP) prior request for information.

  • Output-Focused Governance: The Plan’s approach mirrors our AI Censu framework, which emphasizes judging AI by its impact rather than creating bureaucratic hurdles around data sourcing or model development processes.
  • Individual Empowerment: By supporting individuals’ rights to create and own AI solutions, the Administration has embraced our Digital Prosperity Initiative’s vision of economically empowering Americans through technology, including robust support for open-source AI development that democratizes access to cutting-edge tools.
  • Balanced Accountability: The Plan successfully balances innovation with appropriate safeguards, aligning with our recommendation for transparency without unnecessary bureaucracy, particularly important as we advance open weight AI models that provide visibility into model architecture while maintaining competitive advantages.
  • Education and Workforce Development: The Administration’s recognition that AI advancement requires comprehensive education, training, and upskilling initiatives aligns perfectly with Velatura’s commitment to an “AI First for People” culture, preparing healthcare professionals and the broader workforce for an AI-enabled future.

The alignment between the Administration’s AI Action Plan and Velatura’s vision extends to testimony provided by Prashant Natarajan, our Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer, before the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs earlier this year. In that testimony, Mr. Natarajan outlined several prescriptions for AI success that are reflected in the new Plan:

“The Administration’s AI Action Plan represents a significant validation of the principles I outlined before Congress—particularly the concept of ‘AI Fidelity’ where innovation thrives when healthcare AI is judged by patients and providers in real-world settings, not by regulatory checkboxes,” noted Prashant Natarajan, Velatura’s Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer. “President Trump’s approach brilliantly differentiates between organizational systems requiring structured oversight and personal health AI innovations that demand flexibility. By incorporating these distinctions into national policy, the Plan creates unprecedented opportunities for Americans across the healthcare spectrum—from individual consumers and caregivers to medical professionals and health systems—to develop customized AI solutions while maintaining essential safeguards for enterprise applications. This balanced framework will accelerate precision medicine development while fostering a new wave of patient-led innovation.

As America’s leading healthcare interoperability platform provider and Trusted Data Sharing Organization network spanning fourteen states, Velatura stands uniquely positioned to help the Trump Administration rapidly implement this visionary plan across the healthcare ecosystem through strategic public-private partnerships. Our established infrastructure for secure health information exchange provides an immediate foundation for deploying AI innovations in clinical settings nationwide while maintaining essential privacy protections.

Velatura is prepared to mobilize our technical resources, healthcare partnerships, and AI governance expertise to accelerate the Administration’s objectives—particularly in developing standardized evaluation frameworks and establishing testing sandboxes for healthcare-specific applications. Our Digital Prosperity Initiative offers a ready platform for demonstrating how the Plan’s emphasis on deregulation can foster patient-centered innovation without compromising safety standards, while our commitment to education, training, and upskilling ensures healthcare professionals are prepared to leverage both proprietary and open-source AI solutions effectively.

President Trump’s AI Action Plan represents a transformative American approach to healthcare technology—one that boldly prioritizes innovation while maintaining appropriate accountability measures. Velatura is committed to working directly with the Administration through robust public-private partnerships to ensure America leads the world in AI-powered healthcare advancements that improve outcomes, reduce costs, and restore our nation’s competitive edge in this critical technology frontier.

For more information about Velatura, please visit www.velatura.org.

About Velatura
Velatura is the country’s premier interoperability platform provider and operator of the largest network of multijurisdictional health information exchanges (HIE) and Trusted Data Sharing Organizations (TDSO). By enabling secure and efficient exchange of critical electronic health information, Velatura helps healthcare organizations streamline workflows, improve care coordination, and enhance patient care. For additional information, visit www.velatura.org.

Media Contact
Emily Mata
emily.mata@velatura.org
517-745-8835

Velatura to Showcase Consent Manager+ at Docusign’s IAM in the AM Roadshow in Chicago

Announcements, News

Velatura is proud to be featured at Docusign’s IAM in the A.M. this June in Chicago, where we’ll spotlight how our team leveraged Docusign’s Intelligent Agreement Management (IAM) platform and identity verification technology to power a groundbreaking new solution: Consent Manager+™. 

 A Smarter, AI-Driven Approach to Consent
Designed to meet the growing demand for secure, transparent, and cross-sector consent practices, Consent Manager+ is a first-of-its-kind AI solution that enables organizations to digitally capture, manage, and audit consent across industries, from healthcare and insurance to government, education, finance and beyond. 

 Unlike legacy consent processes, Consent Manager+ leverages both AI and Docusign’s IAM tools and identity verification capabilities to deliver a solution that:
 

  • Reduces administrative burden 
  • Supports self-service at the user, provider and organizational levels 
  • Delivers real time education and decision support through interactive tools like Ask Telli, which helps individuals better understand complex forms through dynamic explanations and scenario-based role play. 
  • Provides dashboards and metrics that support smarter workflows and ongoing optimization. 

See Consent Manager+ in Action 

At the event, Velatura’s Chief AI Officer, Prashant Natarajan, will share how we turned our deep expertise in interoperability, compliance, and ethical data use into a product that helps organizations build trust, accountability, and efficiency into every consent-based interaction. 

 “Consent isn’t just a healthcare problem, it’s a universal business need,” said Natarajan. “Consent Manager+ uses AI proactively and transparently to improve the human experience. Whether you’re managing patient preferences, customer opt-ins, or financial disclosures, Consent Manager+ ensures that individuals remain in control of their data while helping organizations meet regulatory requirements efficiently.”  

Why Attend? 

Join us in Chicago to explore Docusign’s newest AI features, including their intelligent engine, Docusign Iris, and to hear real-world IAM stories like ours. 

You’ll leave with: 

  • A front-row look at how organizations like Velatura are implementing IAM 
  • A deeper understanding of AI-powered agreement transformation 
  • A plan to launch your own IAM initiative, no matter your industry 

 Limited seats available. Secure your spot now. 

 

Modernizing Mental Health Care: How Technology is Improving Florida’s Behavioral Health Services

Announcements, News

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, a time to foster understanding, reduce stigma, and drive action toward meaningful solutions for individuals and families impacted by mental illness. As the nation grapples with a growing behavioral health crisis, particularly among youth, it’s more urgent than ever to reimagine how we deliver mental health services. That means prioritizing accessibility, empathy, and efficiency across all points of care, including how we empower patients and those that support them. 

 Recent data paints a sobering picture: according to The Lancet Psychiatry, nearly 50% of people will develop a mental illness at some point in their lives. Among youth, the numbers are equally troubling. The CDC reports that one in three American teenagers experience poor mental health, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness notes that suicide is the second-leading cause of death among individuals ages 15 to 24. 

 Despite these alarming statistics, stigma and system inefficiencies often prevent families from getting the help they need. Even those who do seek care face fragmented services, confusing paperwork, and prolonged delays—barriers that can be devastating during moments of crisis. 

 Navigating the Baker Act with Dignity and Clarity 

 In Florida, one of the most high-stakes moments a family can face is the activation of the Baker Act, a state law that allows for involuntary mental health evaluations. While intended to ensure safety during acute crises, the Baker Act process can be deeply confusing and traumatic for families, particularly when they are not given clear explanations of their rights or consent requirements. 

 That’s why it is critical to modernize how we manage behavioral health interventions, starting with patient consent. 

 The Future of Consent: Introducing Consent Manager+™ 

 A major step forward in this modernization effort is the launch of Consent Manager+™, a first-of-its-kind, AI-powered platform developed by Velatura Public Benefit Corporation. Designed to redefine how patient consent is captured, managed, and shared across care settings, this digital solution streamlines workflows, enhances privacy, and ensures compliance with federal and state regulations. 

 In behavioral health—where many individuals are navigating services for the first time—paper-based consent forms can introduce delays, confusion, and unnecessary stress. Consent Manager+ replaces that outdated process with an intuitive, digital alternative that’s faster, more secure, and easier to understand. 

 Its impact goes beyond paperwork. By simplifying and accelerating consent, Consent Manager+ removes a major barrier to coordinated, wrap-around care, unlocking a truly whole-person approach that integrates physical, mental and social support services. This coordination is not only critical to better patient outcomes, it’s also a lifeline for Florida’s behavioral health professionals, many of whom are battling burnout and workforce shortages.  

Meet Ask Telli™: AI-Powered Support for Families in Crisis 

 At the heart of Consent Manager+ is Ask Telli™, Velatura’s proprietary, context-sensitive AI chatbot. Ask Telli serves as a compassionate guide for families navigating high-stress situations like those triggered by the Baker Act. 

 Families can interact with Ask Telli to: 

  • Get step-by-step explanations of their rights and options 
  • Ask real-time questions about consent forms and terminology 
  • Complete and submit consents digitally, reducing stress and delays 

 This intelligent support system empowers families during critical moments, keeping them informed and confident when they need it most. 

 A Blueprint for Change 

 Florida’s behavioral health system serves more than 600,000 individuals annually. By modernizing tools and processes, particularly around consent, solutions like Consent Manager+ can help reduce delays, eliminate confusion, and improve coordination across the continuum of care. 

 Technology alone can’t solve the mental health crisis, but it can play a vital role in making care more responsive, integrated and sustainable for both providers and patients. This Mental Awareness Health Month, let’s celebrate not only awareness—but action. Together, we can build a behavioral health system that empowers families, respects patient choice, and delivers the coordinated care every child deserves. 

Shelley Mannino is Executive Vice President of Velatura HIE Corporation. She resides in Fort Myers, Florida.

Collaborating for Connected Care: Missouri Launches Phase 2 of eLTSS Project Powered by Velatura and Key Partners

Announcements, News

Velatura Public Benefit Corporation is proud to support the Missouri Department of Mental Health (DMH), Division of Developmental Disabilities (DD), in the statewide expansion of the Electronic Long-Term Services and Supports (eLTSS) project. This initiative, now in Phase 2, represents a national first: implementing real-time, standards-based sharing of person-centered care plan data for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) across health and social care settings.

Earlier this month, Velatura joined state officials, Health Information Networks (HINs), providers, and technology partners in Missouri for the in-person Phase 2 kickoff. Our involvement in this project reflects our continued leadership in health information exchange, interoperability, and strategic implementation of nationally recognized standards like HL7® FHIR®.

A Scalable, Standards-Based Approach to Connected Care

eLTSS is powered by the FHIR Implementation Guide and designed to integrate person-centered care plan data from Missouri’s Individual Support Plan (ISP) across home- and community-based services (HCBS), acute, emergent, and primary care settings. This approach ensures that all members of an individual’s care team can access actionable, up-to-date information—improving coordination, quality, and outcomes.

Velatura is working alongside Tiger Institute for Health Innovation, Lewis & Clark Information Exchange, and KONZA National Network to operationalize this vision through Missouri’s HIE ecosystem. Our role includes supporting the technical infrastructure required for seamless FHIR-based API connections, ensuring privacy and security standards are met, and enabling interoperability across provider organizations.

Delivering Results Through Public-Private Collaboration

This project is more than a technical implementation. It’s a mission-driven effort to address long-standing fragmentation in the healthcare and social services landscape. Individuals with IDD frequently receive care from a range of providers operating on disconnected systems. eLTSS bridges that gap, equipping providers with timely, relevant data that supports better, more coordinated care.

The Phase 2 launch builds on early success and stakeholder engagement. Key goals include:

  • Making eLTSS data accessible and actionable across the full care team.
  • Improving care coordination for over 15,000 individuals with IDD receiving services through DMH-DD.
  • Enhancing data quality and usability using nationally recognized data exchange standards.
  • Ensuring scalability and sustainability by aligning with federal and state interoperability policies.

This collaborative model, powered by partnership among government agencies, HINs, providers, and technology partners, sets a replicable precedent for other states pursuing FHIR-based solutions to social and clinical care integration.

 

Leading with Experience and Innovation

Velatura brings decades of implementation experience, health IT expertise, and policy insight to projects like eLTSS. As one of the four core HINs engaged in Missouri’s rollout, we’re not just implementing infrastructure—we’re shaping the strategy, defining success metrics, and helping the state and its partners build trust in the data-sharing process.

We understand that success means more than going live. It means providers actively using data to improve outcomes, overcoming adoption barriers, and creating a solution that’s built to last.

 

Setting the Standard for What’s Next

The eLTSS initiative is funded in part by a CMS HCBS enhanced FMAP grant, with support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Leading Edge Acceleration Project in Health IT. As the first statewide implementation of the eLTSS FHIR IG, it positions both Missouri and Velatura as national leaders in delivering person-centered, interoperable care.

We are proud to be on the ground for this important work and look forward to continuing to drive innovation and impact through collaborative, standards-based health information exchange. As Phase 2 gets underway, we remain committed to supporting the individuals, providers, and partners who make connected care a reality.

Learn more about Missouri’s eLTSS initiative here:https://dmh.mo.gov/dev-disabilities/eltss

Velatura Unveils Consent Manager+ with J&B Medical

Announcements, News, Uncategorized

NEW YORK, April 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Velatura Public Benefit Corporation (Velatura), the country’s premier interoperability platform provider and operator of the largest network of multijurisdictional health information exchanges (HIE) and Trusted Data Sharing Organizations (TDSO), today announced the official launch of Consent Manager+™, a groundbreaking AI-driven solution designed to transform how patient consent is captured, managed and honored. The solution debuts with a large-scale implementation at J&B Medical, a recognized leader in healthcare solutions.

Revolutionizing Healthcare Consent
Consent Manager+ uses context-sensitive AI technology to eliminate paper-based inefficiencies and enables real-time, seamless consent capture for all users within healthcare organizations, HIEs and the broader ecosystem. Once completed, consent forms are automatically routed to the provider, the patient and Velatura, where they are securely stored and managed across the operations and care continuum. This ensures that authorized participants and users have timely and compliant access to the data they need to deliver effective, coordinated care.

Consent Manager+ offers a powerful combination of automation, intelligence and interoperability to simplify consent management across the healthcare ecosystem. Key features include:

  • Patient-first, provider friendly workflows that simplify consent education, identification verification and personalized workflows, enabling granular collaboration across healthcare settings.
  • Streamlined administration processes that optimize the creation, distribution, and management of consents across various applications, jurisdictions, and use cases.
  • AI-driven support powered by Ask Telli™, Velatura’s proprietary AI, enables patients to better understand what they are signing, ensuring clarity and confidence in their consent decisions.
  • Cross-sector collaboration is fostered across medical device suppliers, payers, health systems, and even non-healthcare industries like schools and credit unions.
  • Seamless integration with Velatura’s ITP enables secure sharing and control of consent and health data while simplifying opt-in/opt-out HIE workflows.
  • Enhanced provider management through connects to Velatura’s Active Care Relationship Service (ACRS) provides access to patient rosters, Admit, Discharge and Transfer (ADT) hubs, and episodes of care, ensuring optimal data flow and informed decision-making capabilities.

“Consent Manager+ is a first-of-its-kind platform that transforms healthcare consent management,” said Dr. Tim Pletcher, DHA, CEO of Velatura. “More than an upgrade, Consent Manager+ is a fundamental shift in how we respect, manage and act on patient choice. By embedding AI into the very core of the consent process, we’re empowering patients with clarity and giving providers real-time access to critical information, setting a new standard for interoperability across the healthcare ecosystem. This platform reflects our unwavering commitment to building a smarter, more responsive health infrastructure that puts people first.”

J&B Medical Leads the Way as an Early Adopter
J&B Medical, a recognized leader in healthcare solutions, is the first organization to adopt Consent Manager+. Dedicated to improving quality of life, clinical outcomes, and reducing costs, J&B Medical offers insurance-covered medical supplies, emergency medical solutions, and advanced technology for patient care. J&B Medical’s implementation of Consent Manager+ will streamline patient consent for insurance billing and efficiently manage authorizations for healthcare supplies, including diabetes, incontinence, wound care and more, enhancing patient experience and operational efficiencies.

“With more than two decades in healthcare, we’ve seen just how complex and burdensome managing patient consent can be,” said Stephen Shaya, M.D., Executive Servant Leader of J&B Medical. “Consent Manager+ transforms that experience. By streamlining and digitizing the consent process, this platform supports our mission to improve clinical outcomes, reduce healthcare costs and enhance quality of life. We’re proud to be the first partner to implement this innovative solution and are excited about the possibilities it brings for more informed, empowered and connected patient care.”

About J&B Medical
J&B Medical is a recognized market leader in health care focused on enhancing the quality of life, improving clinical outcomes and reducing health care costs for consumers and businesses. Services include insurance-covered and emergency-medical supplies, retail at home, veterinary products, and medical technology solutions. J&B Medical is a nationally certified Women’s Business Enterprise. For more information, please visit us at JandBMedical.com.

About Velatura
Velatura is the country’s premier interoperability platform provider and operator of the largest network of multijurisdictional health information exchanges (HIE) and Trusted Data Sharing Organizations (TDSO). By enabling secure and efficient exchange of critical electronic health information, Velatura helps healthcare organizations streamline workflows, improve care coordination, and enhance patient care. For additional information, visit www.velatura.org.