Blog Entries
 By Steven Randazzo On Monday, July 23, 2012 - 3:58pm
The first of three rounds of HealthData.gov’s developer challenges are currently open for submission! Health Data.gov is hosting three rounds of challenges that focus on one of two areas, domain or platform. The first round features two challenges that are putting developers to the test; the first to focus on data integration and liquidity is the Metadata Domain Challenge. The Metadata Domain Challenge requests the application of existing voluntary consensus data standards for metadata common to all types of government data, and invites new designs for health domain specific metadata to classify datasets in our growing catalog, creating entities, attributes and relations that form the foundations for better discovery, integration and liquidity. Open to submission until October 2, 2012, the winner will demonstrate the application of voluntary consensus and de facto cross domain and domain specific standards to as many of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services datasets available on HealthData.gov. The two objectives are to: Read more » |
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By Steven Randazzo On Monday, July 23, 2012 - 3:10pm
The next installment of HealthData.gov’s blog post series highlighting applications that have been developed leveraging U.S. Department of Health and Human Services data features My Cancer Genome. Developed by a team at Vanderbilt University, My Cancer Genome leverages the National Cancer Institute’s PDQ clinical trial registry to connect people to clinical trials. My Cancer Genome was featured on the main stage at this year’s Health Data Initiative Forum III: Health Datapalooza. Below is a guest post by Christine Micheel Ph.D., Program Manager for Content, Vanderbilt Univerity. Read more » |
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By Steven Randazzo On Thursday, July 5, 2012 - 9:55am
For the past three years, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) has been liberating vast amounts of data for public use, which can be found here on HealthData.gov. Our theory is that if we take the vast stores of data HHS already has, stripped out the personal information and made it available to developers, the data would then be used to create incredible tools; and that’s exactly what’s happened. Since focusing on liberating data, more than 200 applications have been developed with the use public health data. To illustrate the true power of liberated data, periodically, organizations and individuals that have taken open health data and made it useful to communities, consumers and providers will be featured on HealthData.gov. First in a series of applications to be featured on HealthData.gov is the Healthy Communities Network, which won “Best Community Health App” at this year’s Health Datapalooza. Read more » |
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By Steven Randazzo On Tuesday, June 26, 2012 - 11:06am
Last week, the first official meeting of the Subcommittee on Data Access and Use, a subcommittee of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, met in Silver Spring, Maryland to discuss how the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) data is accessed and utilized. The subcommittee is charged with providing recommendations to HHS on how to make health data more readily available and accessible. They represent members of the start-up, tech, academic, business, government, and healthcare community. Such diversity will provide broad perspectives and experiences about the different aspects of health data. Earlier in the day, the sub-committee heard from U.S. Chief Technology Officer, Todd Park, in which the group discussed access and the use of data. Among the discussed topics to be explored further, include: Read more » |
 By Niall Brennan On Friday, June 22, 2012 - 1:46pm
No longer are health records something that sit in a folder in your doctor’s office never to see the light of day! The power of having personal health data at your finger tips is a new and growing phenomenon with help from Medicare Blue Button. Blue Button allows Medicare beneficiaries to access their health data on a website or mobile device and download their personal health data from a personal health record or from their doctors’, hospital’s or clinical laboratory’s patient portal. Since its launch, hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries have downloaded their personal health data. The power of personal health data has taken another step forward, with new opportunities between beneficiaries and their providers as demonstrated at Health Datapalooza III with the announcement of the Blue Button Mash Up Challenge. Read more » |