“This is the moment. This is the catalyst,” remarked Bryan Sivak, Chief Technology Officer for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) about the Health Data Leadership Summit held by the Health Data Consortium late last year. This collection of insights, discussions, and direction is now being released as a whitepaper by HDC as a resource to the health data community.
In November 2013 , HDC convened 35 senior health care leaders at the Health Data Leadership Summit in the John F. Welch Leadership Development Center in Ossining, New York for the purpose of exploring the future of health data in the United States. All the attendees held an interest in open health data and represented diverse constituencies with a stake in the health system: private companies, non-profit organizations, the federal government, health care payers, providers, technology developers, advocates, consultants, and researchers.
Big data is at the center of today’s health care transformation. An April 2013 report from the McKinsey Center for U.S. System Reform[1] predicts that the ability to leverage health care data effectively has the potential to save billions of dollars in health care costs while significantly improving patient care. An exploding demand to better leverage health data exists across all shareholder groups.
We covered substantial ground during the meeting. Our goal was to construct a multi-stakeholder view of a future state, discuss high level opportunities and barriers, and to reduce that work to a candidate set of initiatives and priorities. We accomplished those goals which will be invaluable to our strategy process. While there are always time limitations and more topics to be discussed, the one day format for the event allowed us to focus on the highly important topics and brought an implicit focus. We are pleased to share those results with you.
Together, the leaders wrestled with issues crucial and timely for the way forward. Among the issues discussed include:
- The future of health data: data access, data sharing, and support infrastructure
- Barriers to implementation and success
- Opportunities to catalyze change
- Challenges for Health Data Consortium to take on in the next year
Finally, it was clear there was broad support for putting health data to work, but also that there are many barriers and challenges in front of us. We have much work to do, but with hundreds of health organizations, thousands of leaders in the space, and tens of thousands in the trenches all rowing in the same direction, we can deliver real impact and inspire others to do the same. We invite all of you to take an active role, as true partners, in bringing health data to life across the country.
A copy of the whitepaper, along with other health data resources, is available for download in our resources section.
1. Basel Kayyali, David Knott, and Steve Van Kuiken. McKinsey Center. April 2013. “The Big Data Revolution in Health Care, Accelerating Value and Innovation.” http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/health_systems_and_services/the_big-data_revolution_in_us_health_care ↩