Data wanted, happy to share

Mary Stevens, editor, CMIO

I took a short break yesterday to check out a couple of The Health Data Initiative Forum’s rapid-fire live video app demonstrations. Two things quickly became apparent. First, the amount of high-quality data and metadata publicly available for research, clinical decision support and other purposes has reached critical mass—but there’s plenty of room for more. Second, these data-silo-buster efforts might be where your next app comes from.

Taking the macro approach was the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s (IHME) Global Health Data Exchange (GHDx) catalog and repository, which seeks to measure health outcomes, service delivery, finances and the entire scope of global health using standards that make data easily searchable.

“To do that, we need a broad range of data,” said Peter Speyer, IHME’s director of data development, in the understatement of the day.

GHDx intends to get more people to do more with the data, and the exchange will develop in three phases, he said. Phase 1 is the data catalog, to increase the transparency of data. In Phase 2, the exchange will work with data owners to make those data available for download on its website, and Phase 3 will be to develop the community perspective and connect data users and owners.

Up next was Data Relief, a California nonprofit that delivers medical supplies to safety net healthcare providers in every U.S. state and 70 countries. Data Relief has developed a program that medical suppliers to nonprofits in all 50 states, said Damon Taugher, director of Direct Relief U.S.A.

How can data help? Data Relief resources include a map of the U.S. that can show “where people are located and what they have,” Taugher said. The map can show 1,100 federally qualified health centers and 7,500 clinical delivery sites, among other elements.

The organization hopes to serve in an analytical role to make specific requests for nonprofits. Having the right information enabled Data Relief to distribute more than a million inhalers, he said. Knowing the locations of a network of nonprofit safety net providers becomes critical when disaster strikes. If the supply chain is interrupted, uninsured and chronic condition patients may have difficulty accessing their medications to stay healthy, Taugher explained.

It could be a smartphone app, data used innovativly or something else, but if your facility has fewer than 150 beds and a quantifiable health IT success story to tell, we’d like to include it in our upcoming “Small Hospitals, Big Ideas” feature. Contact me at mstevens@trimedmedia.com for more details.

Mary Stevens, Editor