Simply want to say your article is as astonishing. The clarity in your post is simply excellent and i can assume you're an expert on this subject. Well with your permission allow me to grab your feed to keep up to date with forthcoming post. Thanks a million and please continue the rewarding work.

Congratulations and thanks on launching Health Data card. Will be very useful.

Regards,

Baycare Dental Center Auckland

The VA has started the on line health care progress notes, as a VIetnam veteran, it shows that something is starting to happen, where all Americans that have used any health care may soon be able to know what the doctors and nurses wrote.  I know the VA system is far from perfect, but it's a start!

We love data, thanks!
 
Todd, we’re really excited to see this new data and we are firm supporters of your campaign for data liberacion. As technologists, we look forward to making use of this valuable data ourselves and helping other important enterprises make use of it. When we participated in the Community Health Data Initiative, the concept of open health data was just beginning and it’s great to see how far you all have advanced the state of the art. As a standalone resource, and one that can provide context in other settings, data.gov/health will help patients, policymakers, and public health officials make important decisions about individual and community health.
 
Alex Fishman and Melody Hildebrandt
Forward Deployed Engineers
Palantir Technologies

I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about the extent – the breadth and depth of health-related data – but the Healthdata.gov is eye-opening.  I see this portal as literally that – an entrance to a much more extensive, varied, innovative, and, in many ways, challenging world of quantitative and qualitative information on health.  I think it will cause us to consider what we mean by good data, by stable data, and (I hope) by what type and quality of data we need for various decisions.   And above all it’ll be useful!

Perhaps the best way to explore the site is to dive in– and I did – but I’d like a guide—perhaps interactive –to help along the way and explain just what the Health Indicators Warehouse will do for me (that I know, of course since my colleagues at NCHS developed the warehouse), how to access the applications and how to sort through them.  

The links to Other data sites and the Forum are great ideas…The Other data sites in particular provides ready reference to data that can be extremely valuable – data that are already being used..  

Under the Forum I would love to see a discussion start on the development and use of summary health measures … I have some strong biases in this direction.  It would also be interesting to see a tracking of key (or perhaps not so key) activities  underway like the NCVHS focus on community health data ( or NCVHS in general for that matter) on NCHS, on the IOM and it’s data use activities, hearings etc.

I’d also love to see technical reference material on how one can learn more on automated data feeds and how to use them….

It’ll be fascinating too to have healthdata.gov users report on their use of the site…And very helpful to me in NCHS on what they see as the needs well met, not so well met and not met on the Federal data side. 

One other thought would be feedback from users on how they have met the challenge of data on smaller populations or geographical areas – always a challenge.  

Congratulations to all on this new portal.

Ed

Edward J Sondik
Director
The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)
CDC/HHS

An important policy lever to advance the President's agenda for out-innovating, out-educating, and out-building our economic competitors is the power to convene an ecosystem around our biggest policy challenges. Today's launch of healthdata.gov marks an important milestone in seeding a health ecosystem that will surely lead to advances in public health as well as startups that will harness open data in new and creative ways to drive greater value for our healthcare investment.

Aneesh Chopra
Chief Technology Officer of the United States

Health more than most industries is all about information – getting the right information to the right person at the right time. To accomplish this, we need to ‘liberate’ health data from the disconnected systems where it currently resides – making information available from across the health system so that individuals and organizations can engage with the data and use it in meaningful ways. The federal government spends billions of dollars a year compiling information on smoking rates, obesity rates, hospital readmissions, hospital quality, etc. It’s exciting to see the government supporting the idea of data liberation by making this information more accessible to individuals and organizations. At Microsoft, we’ve used thedata to create new options for users of products such asMicrosoft Amalga and Bing, and we look forward to continuing to leverage government data to add value for our customers and to inform decision-makers — consumers, patients, providers, employers, government officials — to help them make the right decisions at the right time, to maximize health and well-being.

Peter Neupert, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Health Solutions Group

In my time of public service, I found that one of the most important aspects of my responsibility to the people of Sonoma County was to deliver the facts about where we are today and what we need to do to create a sustainable future.,

In Sonoma County, we deal with many challenging and complex issues involving the health of our community. Together, we have been able to leverage data, analytic tools, and information sources on effective practices in unprecedented ways.  One of the key elements of our strategy to improve community health has been through the use of the Network of Care - Healthy Communities resource.  This information wellspring is a powerful vehicle for change through its ability to integrate many aspects of information about health and government services in a simple, easy to use platform.  It allows decision makers to create programs that achieve success, by reducing obesity in children and diabetes in adults.

The use of the internet and social network tools is a powerful force for community action and improvement. Healthdata.gov has captured the ability to utilize existing data and knowledge to motivate and support healthy living as a dominant force for change in all communities in America.

I am personally thrilled to find the new capabilities and information sources provided by Healthdata.gov. Personal experience in our community using data has shown me how understanding the problem promotes action. I encourage all civic leaders and concerned citizens to take a moment and understand the power of data through Healthdata.gov

Valerie Brown
Supervisor, First District
Past President of National Association of Counties
Sonoma County,  California

Dear Todd and team,

Congratulations on the launch of this incredible resource! I’m sure it will prove useful for the research community, and also for the many other stakeholders – patients, application developers, clinicians – engaged in the health care space.  As the professional society for researchers and policymakers who study the health system, AcademyHealth is excited about the many opportunities these data present for unleashing innovation and discovery, ultimately improving health and healthcare. 

AcademyHealth has long advocated for greater data transparency and access, so we are very encouraged by the development of resources such as this that support our members as they strive to uncover actionable, practice- and policy-relevant solutions to some of our nation’s most challenging health care issues.

We look forward to engaging our membership in the use and continuous improvement of this fabulous new resource.  We also are excited to work with new partners to uncover new knowledge that changes and improves the way we deliver care. And as we learn and innovate, we will be sure to share our experiences with you so that you can include those stories in your wildly informative and entertaining talks about “data liberación.”  Thanks Todd!  

Lisa Simpson, M.B. B.Ch., MPH, FAAP
President and CEO
AcademyHealth

The launch of HealthData.gov is a major milestone towards a health system that uses data to improve health, patient care, patient choices, competition, and create economic value.  Unleashing what has until now been hard to access health data will set off a torrent of investment, lead to new companies and new jobs, new tools, and enable far more transparency.  Together, these things all lead to a better health system for patients.  It is none too soon that healthcare move down the path of a range of other industries that has leveraged technological and data improvements to improve productivity, increase competition, create innovative products, enhance the customer experience, and achieve better financial performance.  HealthData.gov, and the new datasets HHS is releasing today and over the next four years as a result of the Affordable Care Act, is a major step towards putting the healthcare industry on a similar trajectory.  

By making public data public, easily accessible, and useable without IP constraints developers, researchers, healthcare organizations, public health officials, and others will be able to ask and answer questions that in the past would have been very costly and time consuming, and combine this data with other data sets to improve insight.  A marketplace will emerge based on products derived from this data.  This market will grow and a virtuous cycle will emerge as demand grows for more data and more tools derived from data.  Undoubtedly, software developers and entrepreneurs will put this data to work to make new products and tools and to improve existing ones.

People should pay close attention – the pace of progress has accelerated with this bolus of data.  HealthData.gov, together with the efforts of the IOM Health Data Initiative and Health2.0, represent a data community and movement of tremendous potential.  We should all look forward to a future better health system empowered by more, more timely and more granular data.  

Bob Kocher, MD
Director of the McKinsey Center for U.S. Health System Reform and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Engleberg Center for Health Reform at Brookings.