The Community Health Data Initiative Launched

[Ed. Note: HRW is pleased to introduce Katherine Matos to the blog. Katherine is a 3^rd year student at Seton Hall Law and the principle inventor on a patent application in the field of medical imaging, resulting from her research as a student at Stevens Institute of Technology, from which she  graduated with degrees in biomedical engineering and history. She has published work in Health Law Outlook and now serves as an Editor. Read more]

On June 2, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sibelius and Institute of Medicine (IOM) President Harvey Fineberg launched the Community Health Data Initiative (CHDI) at the IOM sponsored Community Health Data Forum in Washington.[i] The CHDI resulted from a March 11 roundtable between HHS and IOM regarding HHS health data usefulness in developing consumer-based electronic health care applications.[ii] As one of five HHS Flagship initiatives, the CHDI is a public-private effort to “help Americans understand health and health care performance in their communities — and to help spark and facilitate action to improve performance.”

Ultimately, a network of community health data suppliers (beginning with HHS) and data appliers (private innovators) will work together to create applications that:

“(1) raise awareness of community health performance,

(2) increase pressure on decision makers to improve performance, and

(3) help facilitate and inform action to improve performance.”

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, HHS Open Government Plan, page 60, April 7, 2010, available at http://www.hhs.gov/open/plan/opengovernmentplan/ourplan_openhhs.pdf.

To begin the process, HHS will launch a new online Health Indicators Warehouse by the end of the year to provide the public with community health data, free of charge or any intellectual property constraint.[iii] “In every science-based endeavor, data are the key to the effective action,” said Dr. Fineberg at the Community Health Data Forum. “We need to make more creative and vigorous use of the data we generate now, and we need to create a demand-and-use cycle that will bring about even better information in the future.”[iv] While the National Center for Health Statistics continues to develop the Health Indicators Warehouse, an interim site with one downloadable data set has been made available on the CDC website.

When completed, hundreds (ultimately, thousands) of measures of health care quality, cost, access and public health will be downloadable in a standardized, structured format. “National, state, regional, and county health performance  on indicators such as rates of smoking, obesity, diabetes, access to healthy food, utilization of health care services” will be accessible in a single location.[v] Also, users will be able to sort data according to age, gender, race/ethnicity and income where available.

HHS is committed to personal privacy protection and confidentially “as a fundamental principle governing the collection and use of data.” In any public data releases, individual identifiable information will be protected. Furthermore, HHS will incorporate new approaches to protect confidentiality while maintaining public access into its data release policies.[vi]

To complete the network, HHS is working with private parties, including technology innovators, researchers, companies, and health advocacy groups to utilize the data and provide feedback.  ”As a nation, we can and should harness the exploding creativity in our information technology and media sectors to help us get the most public benefit out of our data investments,” stated Secretary Sebelius.[vii]

In preparation for the Community Health Data Forum, developers such as Microsoft, Google, and Ingenix created software platforms for the presentation of health data.[viii] The Forum featured demonstrations of Web tools for citizen access to health performance data, dashboards for civic leaders to ascertain and improve community health, an online game for learning local health status facts, an enhanced internet search engine that integrates hospital performance data with search results, and mobile phone applications.[ix]

Finally, White House Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Copra, announced that the administration would host the 2010 Health 2.0 Developer Challenge with the support of HHS and the CHDI.[x] Health 2.0 will host a series of events including multi-disciplinary “code-a-thons,” culminating in the final Challenge at the Health 2.0 Annual Conference October 6-9, 2010.

References:

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, HHS Open Government Plan, April 7, 2010, available at http://www.hhs.gov/open/plan/opengovernmentplan/ourplan_openhhs.pdf.

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, News Release: Putting Data and Innovation to Work to Help Communities and Consumers Improve Health, June 2, 2010, available at http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2010pres/06/20100602a.html.

Genevieve Douglas, HHS Launches New Data Initiative Focused on Improving Community Health, BNA’s Health Care Daily Report,  June 3, 2010, available at http://news.bna.com/hdln/HDLNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=17265216&vname=hcenotallissues&fn=17265216&jd=a0c3g8b4c1&split=0.

[ii] Genevieve Douglas, HHS Launches New Data Initiative Focused on Improving Community Health, BNA’s Health Care Daily Report,  June 3, 2010, available at http://news.bna.com/hdln/HDLNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=17265216&vname=hcenotallissues&fn=17265216&jd=a0c3g8b4c1&split=0.

[iii] U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, News Release: Putting Data and Innovation to Work to Help Communities and Consumers Improve Health, June 2, 2010, available at http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2010pres/06/20100602a.html. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, HHS Open Government Plan, April 7, 2010, available at http://www.hhs.gov/open/plan/opengovernmentplan/ourplan_openhhs.pdf.

[iv] Genevieve Douglas, HHS Launches New Data Initiative Focused on Improving Community Health, BNA’s Health Care Daily Report,  June 3, 2010, available at http://news.bna.com/hdln/HDLNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=17265216&vname=hcenotallissues&fn=17265216&jd=a0c3g8b4c1&split=0.

[v] U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, News Release: Putting Data and Innovation to Work to Help Communities and Consumers Improve Health, June 2, 2010, available at http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2010pres/06/20100602a.html.

[vi] U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, HHS Open Government Plan, April 7, 2010, available at http://www.hhs.gov/open/plan/opengovernmentplan/ourplan_openhhs.pdf, page 2.

[vii] Genevieve Douglas, HHS Launches New Data Initiative Focused on Improving Community Health, BNA’s Health Care Daily Report,  June 3, 2010, available at http://news.bna.com/hdln/HDLNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=17265216&vname=hcenotallissues&fn=17265216&jd=a0c3g8b4c1&split=0.

[viii] Genevieve Douglas, HHS Launches New Data Initiative Focused on Improving Community Health, BNA’s Health Care Daily Report,  June 3, 2010, available at http://news.bna.com/hdln/HDLNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=17265216&vname=hcenotallissues&fn=17265216&jd=a0c3g8b4c1&split=0.

[ix] U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, News Release: Putting Data and Innovation to Work to Help Communities and Consumers Improve Health, June 2, 2010, available at http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2010pres/06/20100602a.html

[x] Genevieve Douglas, HHS Launches New Data Initiative Focused on Improving Community Health, BNA’s Health Care Daily Report,  June 3, 2010, available at http://news.bna.com/hdln/HDLNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=17265216&vname=hcenotallissues&fn=17265216&jd=a0c3g8b4c1&split=0.