By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    Health
    Healthcare organizations are operating on slimmer profit margins than ever. One report in August showed that they are even lower than the beginning of the…
    Show More
    Top News
    physical health
    5 Ways Playing Games Can Improve Neural and Physical Health
    September 9, 2022
    Reasons For Hair Loss and Its Treatment
    Reasons For Hair Loss and Its Treatment
    February 16, 2022
    healthcare organization
    5 Actionable Strategies For Healthcare Organizations
    August 15, 2022
    Latest News
    6 Essential Strategies for Improving Your Medical Practice
    January 25, 2023
    Staying Positive While Living with Mesothelioma
    January 24, 2023
    The Many Health Benefits of Being Outdoors
    January 17, 2023
    How to Assess a Safe Placement of a Nasogastric or Nasoenteric Tube and Its Complications
    January 19, 2023
  • Policy and Law
    • Global Healthcare
    • Medical Ethics
    Policy and Law
    Get the latest updates about Insurance policies and Laws in the Healthcare industry for different geographical locations.
    Show More
    Top News
    Here’s What To Know And Expect About The Future Of Healthcare
    January 22, 2020
    How Your Healthcare Facility Can Ace Their Patient Safety Survey
    February 5, 2021
    Consider These Benefits Of Concierge Healthcare For The Elderly
    July 7, 2020
    Latest News
    Simplifying the Genetic Testing Process: How At-Home Kits are Changing the Game
    January 25, 2023
    9 Hospitals That Have Introduced Green Initiatives
    January 25, 2023
    Why a Health Retreat Can Be the Best Medicine
    January 12, 2023
    Best Money-Saving Tips for Health Managers
    January 12, 2023
  • Medical Innovations
  • News
  • Wellness
  • Tech
Search
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: Transparent Heath Data and APIs are Real, Where Were the Med Device Vendors?
Share
Sign In
Notification Show More
Latest News
ABA therapist
Everything You Need to Know About Applied Behavior Analysis
Health
Small Lifestyle Changes That Can Have A Big Impact On Your Well-Being
lifestyle Wellness
The Future Of Medicine: How Immunotherapy Is Saving Lives
The Future Of Medicine: How Immunotherapy Is Saving Lives
Technology
medical practice and technology advancement
6 Essential Strategies for Improving Your Medical Practice
Technology
digital dental x-ray
How Does A Digital Dental X-Ray Work?
Dental health
Aa
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
Aa
Search
Have an existing account? Sign In
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Health Works Collective > eHealth > Transparent Heath Data and APIs are Real, Where Were the Med Device Vendors?
eHealth

Transparent Heath Data and APIs are Real, Where Were the Med Device Vendors?

ShahidShah
Last updated: 2011/06/09 at 9:49 PM
ShahidShah
Share
6 Min Read
SHARE

 

I was invited to attend the second annual Healthcare Data Initiative Forum at the NIH Institute of Medicine (IOM) and after spending most of the day today listening to the keynotes and panelists as well as acting as a judge for some of the app contests, I’m leaving impressed and full of hope for our little tech corner of the world.

 

I was invited to attend the second annual Healthcare Data Initiative Forum at the NIH Institute of Medicine (IOM) and after spending most of the day today listening to the keynotes and panelists as well as acting as a judge for some of the app contests, I’m leaving impressed and full of hope for our little tech corner of the world.

More Read

laser hair removal technology

Laser Hair Removal for Men

Top Benefits of Electronic Health Records for Psychiatrists and Psychologists
Why Your Medical Practice Needs Used or Refurbished Medical Equipment
How To Improve Patient Access Metrics
5 Ways Social Media Affects Teen Mental Health

This “open data forum” or “data palooza” as it’s affectionately called was well attended — the gathering was kicked off  by no less than Kathleen Sebelius (HHS Secretary), Francis Collins (NIH Director), and Todd Park (HHS CTO, who was energetic and terrific, as usual). The attention paid to the forum by HHS was significant; in fact, the only way to give it more importance would have been to have President Obama do the introductions. Also in attendance were Peter Levin, Aneesh Chopra, and many other civil servants who have been evangelizing the open data mantra.

I was at the inaugural Forum about this same time last year and was skeptical when many of the “we will open government healthcare data to public” promises were originally made. Back then the goals seemed too lofty for them to be achieved but one year and hundreds of published datasets later, including an impressive Healthcare Indicators Warehouse created by CMS, I’m now a believer. Don’t get me wrong — we have a long way to go, but I see light at the end of the tunnel now in a way that I’ve never seen before. The biggest splash was made by, as usual, the “Blue Button” crowd — Peter Levin of VA was a rockstar, which he deserves. His push for the Blue Button has been instrumental in the open data movement and proves that simple stuff done quickly beats complex stuff done sometime in the future.

I’ve been a huge fan of open data, especially linked open data, attached to RESTful APIs that can easily connect multiple applications together. While there was lots of talk about datasets being available now, most of those datasets are just data dumps that have to be downloaded. While not ideal, most of the open data today is available in linked files as opposed to RESTful APIs but that should change by this time next year (that’s what I mean by having a long way to go).

One problem I saw was that many people were talking about APIs but almost no one (except my friend George Thomas at GSA) is promoting linked open data (LOD) along with the related technologies like RDF, RDFa, SPARQL, etc. Once we realize that linked data is the real future (not just simple APIs and certainly not just downloadable files) we’ll start to see even more rapid adoption.

Another problem I saw was that there was good attendance by government and commercial health IT folks but almost no medical device firms were present. When talking about opening data and making data more transparent and accessible, we need to make sure that medical device vendors are treated as first class citizens. Much of the data we need for clinical analysis and real health improvements is trapped in medical devices or their server gateways — anonymized medical device data sets would be a game changer. We have to stop manually entering data into EHRs and start pulling them in directly from patients, lab systems, and medical devices. I talked with some government officials about the lack of med device vendors and they said they would consider including them in the future.

If you haven’t seen them already, be sure to visit these sites:

  • Health.Data.Gov (http://health.data.gov) — the main open data portal
  • Health Indicators Warehouse (http://healthindicators.gov/) — a terrific data warehouse of tons of CMS data
  • Medline Plus Connect — National Library of Medicine’s free service that connects into EHRs to provide authoritative friendly explanations of clinical concepts

Also, I saw some companies that have immediate applicability to data integration:

  • InfoChimps (http://www.InfoChimps.com) — these guys can take arbitrary data sets and make them accessible via RESTful JSON APIs for immediate connectivity. I talked with them about problems that I’ve seen with the National Provider and Organizations database and asked them if they could take the downloadable files from HHS and make them more API friendly. They said they’d check it out and let me know. I’ll let you know what they come back with and how easy they are to work with.
  • Ozioma (http://www.LocalHealthData.org/) — when you’re looking for local healthcare trends and data

TAGGED: E-health, HIT, medical technology

Sign Up For Daily Newsletter

Be keep up! Get the latest breaking news delivered straight to your inbox.
By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.
ShahidShah June 9, 2011
Share this Article
Facebook Twitter Copy Link Print
Share
Previous Article Navigating the Perilous Road: A Special Panel On Regulatory and Reimbursement Issues
Next Article Will Obama Follow UK Meeting with Adequate Money for Vaccines?

Stay Connected

1.5k Followers Like
4.5k Followers Follow
2.8k Followers Pin
136k Subscribers Subscribe

Latest News

ABA therapist
Everything You Need to Know About Applied Behavior Analysis
Health January 26, 2023
Small Lifestyle Changes That Can Have A Big Impact On Your Well-Being
lifestyle Wellness January 26, 2023
The Future Of Medicine: How Immunotherapy Is Saving Lives
The Future Of Medicine: How Immunotherapy Is Saving Lives
Technology January 26, 2023
medical practice and technology advancement
6 Essential Strategies for Improving Your Medical Practice
Technology January 25, 2023

You Might also Like

Top 4 traits every healthcare provider should have
Health

Top 4 Traits Every Healthcare Provider Should Have

December 30, 2022
AI helps healthcare providers with record keeping through the use of medical code extraction
Medical InnovationsTechnology

Medical Code Extraction Using Artificial Intelligence

December 15, 2022
healthcare video marketing
MarketingSocial Media

How to Maintain a Successful YouTube Channel as a Healthcare Organization: Advantages of Video Marketing for your Medical Practice

November 9, 2022
Health

How Does Cloud Computing Support Healthcare Organizations With Daily Functions

November 7, 2022
//

We influence million of users and is the most authentic source of information on healthcare business and technology news.

Quick Links

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Subscribe

Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!

Follow US

© 2008-2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.

Removed from reading list

Undo
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?