HIMSS12: Officials Stump for Open Data, Consumer Health Tools

Kate Ackerman | iHealthBeat | February 24, 2012

Although most of the 36,526 attendees at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conference on Thursday were focused on the release of the proposed rules for Stage 2 of the meaningful use incentive program, two big-name federal health officials -- U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin and HHS Chief Technology Officer Todd Park -- focused on other aspects of health IT.

Park discussed how open data can help spur innovation to improve health and health care, while Benjamin talked about how technology can "bring health to where people are." Park said the federal government's Health Data Initiative is "an effort to turn HHS and sister agencies into the NOAA of health data."

Three decades ago, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began making weather data available for download in electronic form at no cost. Entrepreneurs and innovators leveraged that data for weather newscasts, websites, mobile applications, insurance, research and more...