This post comes to us courtesy of Marshall Votta, Vice President of Leverage Health Solutions.
A few weeks ago, I was glad to attend my fourth “Health Datapalooza”, which at 2,000+ attendees has certainly come a long way from meetings I remember in the early days of the “Data Liberacion” movement. This year marked the first time the event was hosted by the newly-formed Health Data Consortium, which has been established to convene and promote collaboration among healthcare industry stakeholders from public and private sector organizations, as well as consumers and investors. (I’d encourage everyone to spend a few moments at the HDC website to learn more about how they might get involved!)
Attendees at the forum gathered to hear the latest from a distinguished faculty filled with thought leaders, and also to learn about companies whose new products and services facilitate the release and use of health information to improve outcomes and reduce cost. I serve on the board of advisers for one such company, RowdMap, and was proud to watch them take the stage to tell their story… with a twist.
On Tuesday morning, U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park addressed the crowd, and it’s worth noting that it was discussions two years ago about industry challenges with Todd that eventually led the RowdMap team to start their latest venture. Following Todd’s remarks, RowdMap Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer, Josh Rosenthal, Ph.D., emceed “Family Feud’n,” a game show where Payers and Providers competed in a hilarious face-off exploring CMS’s innovative and popular Medicare Advantage program. RowdMap’s Health Profit Intelligence Platform provided compelling visualizations as backdrop to illustrate areas of the country where the RowdMap team surveyed the market with questions related to what people think about Medicare Advantage, payer/provider collaboration in serving Medicare members, and the quality of hospital offerings.
As the Consortium works to help innovators unleash the potential of new health data being released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and other organizations, the Datapalooza highlights the role innovators like those on the RowdMap team are playing in the reform of the U.S. healthcare system. As entrepreneurs empower patients and providers to change the way we think about and manage health, it’s encouraging to watch the way the private sector is embracing collaboration with the government in support of Medicare and Medicaid members, as well as individuals on the emerging health insurance exchanges. The “Family Feud’n” game show was an entertaining testament to that type of partnership and the essential contribution that the use of health data will make to its success.
Blog post author, Marshall Votta, is Vice President of Leverage Health Solutions and Director of Healthspottr’s network development on the East Coast. He is an Advisory Board Member of RowdMap and chairs the payer committee for the Collaborative Health Consortium, does innovative stuff with the Care Continuum Alliance, and advises the Foundation for Art & Healing.