“We’re not just affiliates, we’re health data sherpas!”
Last week, we held the first ever HDC Affiliates Summit in Dallas, TX. You may be asking: what exactly is an HDC Affiliate? Briefly, it’s any organization that aligns itself with the goals and vision of the Health Data Consortium: to foster the availability and use of health data to drive innovations that improve health and health care. By bringing together a group of affiliate organizations, we are working to promote the ideals of open data in health around the country. As we add more regional affiliates, the mission of the Health Data Consortium will continue to have a broader reach to members of the health care ecosystem, including individuals, consumers, health care professionals, universities, government agencies, innovators, and entrepreneurs.
The Affiliates Summit reinforced our goals for the Affiliates program. We are working to design the affiliate program for impact. We currently have seven passionate, highly energized affiliate organizations from around the country, all of whom are engaged with driving the health care movement forward.
We see a number of opportunities that we may be able to leverage, including:
- Fill in gaps in knowledge and capabilities through new analytics
- Create an affiliate learning community that shares best practices, templates, etc.
- Build a library of successes to support both national and local stories of success
- Promote our thought leadership through newsletters, webinars, and other tools
- Support visible policies that accelerate the use of health data
This is just the start of a long list of opportunities that may be enabled or supported by a growing HDC Affiliates program. In the weeks ahead, we will be highlighting our current HDC Affiliates so that you can get to know them better.
Are you extending the impact of health data innovation in your community? If you think your organization would be a good fit in the HDC Affiliates Program, please contact us! We’re always looking to partner with exceptional regional players.