ACA & Open Data Could Drive Health IT Innovation

Brian Horowitz | eWeek | May 29, 2013

"Data that supports medical decision making and collaboration, dovetailing with new tools in the Affordable Care Act [ACA], are spurring the innovation necessary to deliver improved health care for more people at affordable prices," U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS] Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote in a May 28 blog post.

Allowing doctors and hospitals to be reimbursed for outcomes and the value of their care rather than simply for procedures and tests is the goal of the ACA. Doctors are forming accountable care organizations (ACOs) and using this data to increase transparency in the quality of care.

"Entrepreneurs and innovators across the country are developing and deploying new data-powered IT tools to help clinicians succeed at delivering better care at lower cost," U.S. CTO Todd Park wrote in a May 28 blog post.

HHS has organized Datapalooza events as part of a Health Data Consortium to encourage companies to integrate its open data into their health IT platforms...