Pharmacy Standards Play Key Role in CMS Health Technology Ecosystem
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Jan. 14, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — NCPDP announced today that it has been selected to become part of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) Aligned Network. Through this participation, the organization will bring the pharmacy and medication standards perspective to the CMS Health Technology Ecosystem, supporting national efforts to advance interoperable, trusted, and standards-based health information exchange.
“Being recognized as a Friend of the Network is a meaningful milestone for NCPDP and the pharmacy community,” said Lee Ann Stember, NCPDP President and CEO. “This commitment reinforces the importance of pharmacy and medication data in national interoperability efforts and ensures pharmacy expertise is included as CMS shapes the future of health information exchange, while advancing standards that support safe, timely, and connected care.”
The CMS Aligned Network is part of the broader Health Technology Ecosystem, a national effort designed to modernize digital health infrastructure, improve real-time data sharing, and better connect patients, providers, and innovators. The “Friend of the Network” designation enables organizations that support ecosystem participants, such as networks, payers, electronic health record (EHR) vendors, and application developers, to align with CMS’s interoperability goals without serving as a core network entity.
NCPDP’s participation strengthens connections to key ecosystem participants identified by CMS, including networks, payers, providers, EHR vendors, and patient-facing health applications. This engagement helps ensure that standards, workflows, and innovations remain aligned with evolving federal expectations and emerging digital health capabilities, directly benefiting members across the pharmacy ecosystem.
As a Friend of the Network, NCPDP will support national interoperability efforts by providing pharmacy-specific input as the health technology ecosystem participants develop guidance, frameworks, directories, and future health IT policies. This role also strengthens collaboration opportunities for NCPDP members with national networks and health technology partners, helping accelerate adoption of NCPDP standards and ensuring pharmacy workflows are fully integrated into the future health technology ecosystem.
About NCPDP
The National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP), established in 1977, is a nonprofit ANSI-accredited Standards Developer (ASD) with members across the healthcare industry. NCPDP develops standards and solutions to improve the exchange of information for medications, supplies, and services, including the SCRIPT Standard for ePrescribing and the Telecommunication Standard. Its data products include dataQ®, providing insights on over 80,000 pharmacies, and HCIdea®, a prescriber database with over 3.7 million records. NCPDP’s RxReconn® offers real-time tracking of pharmacy-related legislative and regulatory activity at state and national levels. Named in federal legislation such as HIPAA and HITECH, NCPDP has been advancing healthcare interoperability for decades. Learn more at www.ncpdp.org.
SOURCE NCPDP
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