In an unscheduled session at the Blue Button 2.0 Developer Conference, executives from Amazon, Microsoft, Google, IBM, Oracle, and Salesforce came together to announce a joint pledge to remove barriers to healthcare data interoperability.

While details were scant, each company underscored their commitment to advancing data sharing efforts and working to “eliminate the friction that exists in the healthcare systems today,” as Dean Garfield, CEO of the Information Technology Industry Council put it.

Reporting from Tom Sullivan at HealthcareITNews available here.