NY Health Data Transparency Draws Journalists, Researchers and Coders

New York transparency advocates are praising the state's leadership role in making health data accessible as the New York State Department of Health is organizing a health-data focused Codeathon later this week.

The New York Times reported on the recently released dataset containing the median charges and costs for 1,400 conditions and procedures at all hospitals in the state from 2009 to 2011 by noting that the prices for procedures at some hospitals seemed to be inaccurately low and pointing out "extreme and unpredictable variations in cost, markups and charges" for childbirth cases and routine medical care of newborns...

In a blog post, advocacy group Reinvent Albany writes that the uncovering of the inaccuracies illustrates the benefit of open data. "This is exactly what should happen when important government data sets are published and scrutinized by the press and experts," the group writes...

... two hospital trade groups had opposed the release of the data and expressed their concerns to DOH Commissioner Nirav Shah, arguing that the raw data would not be useful to consumers and create confusion.