Health Datapalooza Would Benefit From Real Innovation Investment

One of the many things newly-appointed Federal Chief Technology Officer Todd Park is credited with while serving in that role at the Department of Health and Human Services is the Health Data Initiative (HDI) and the HealthCare.gov webs site.

Originally launched in 2010 by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the HHS as the Community Health Data Initiative (HDI Forum I), it is now part of the Health Data Consortium (HDC), a new public-private collaboration that encourages innovators to utilize health data to develop applications to raise awareness of health and health system performance and spark community action to improve health (HDI Forum II last June).

The goal of what is now being called the Health Datapalooza (HDI Forum III), to be held on June 5-6, 2012, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC., is to showcase the best and brightest new applications using health data from government and other sources. I have followed Todd Park's--and his predecessor, Aneesh Chopra's--innovation efforts with health data culminating in the Health Data Initiative Forum II last June and the Strata 2011 New York Conference last September. I like their four policy levers that reflect their open innovation philosophy: Opening up data for innovators and entrepreneurs; taking on the role of impatient convener; initiating prizes, challenges, and competitions; and attracting top talent at the intersection of technology and policy."...