Updates on ONC’s SHARP — Strategic Healthcare IT Advanced Research Projects

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SHARP Awards for Health IT Establish Web Sites
Web sites have been launched for each of the four advanced research projects announced April 2, 2010 by the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health IT. The program called Strategic Healthcare IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP), totalling $60 million over four years, taps into four consortia of leading reseach and academic institutions each led by a major research institution. “The research projects supported by the SHARP program will focus on solving current and expected future challenges that represent barriers to adoption and meaningful use of health IT. These projects will focus on areas where ‘breakthrough’ advances are needed to realize the full potential of health IT.” This chart was taken from the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine Wiki site for its project.

SHARP Organization
SHARP Organization

1. Security of Health IT
http://sharps.org
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Strategic Healthcare IT Advanced Research Projects on Security (SHARPS)
SHARPS is accociated with the Center for Health Information Privacy and Security in the Information Trust Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
In their research overview, SHARPS describes the structure of their project, “SHARPS is organized around three major environments: Electronic Health Records (EHRs), Health Information Exchanges (HIEs), and Telemedicine  (TEL), with Personal Health Records (PHRs) included as a major subtopic. SHARPS research projects in these strategic areas are interconnected through three cross-cutting themes: conceptual and policy foundations, service models, and open validation.”
People
Research
Jobs
Publications
Links

2. Patient-Centered Congnitive Support
http://sharpc.org
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
National Center for Cognitive Informatics and Decision Making in Healthcare (NCCD)
Alternative URL: http://www.uthouston.edu/nccd
Mission: “The mission of the NCCD is to bring together a collaborative, interdisciplinary team of researchers from across the nation; with the highest level of expertise in patient-centered cognitive support research from biomedical and health informatics, cognitive science, clinical sciences, industrial and systems engineering, and health services research. Additionally, the NCCD will conduct short-term research that addresses the urgent usability , workflow, and cognitive support issues of Health Information Technology ( HIT) as well as long-term, breakthrough research that can fundamentally remove the key cognitive barriers to HIT adoption and meaningful use. The center will translate research findings to the real world through a cooperative program involving researchers, patients, providers, HIT vendors, and other stakeholders.”

About NCCD
Org Chart
Projects
Key Personnel
Project Advisory Committee
Sharp C Wiki (not up and running as of 6/7/2010) 

Projects

Project Title

 
Project 1 Work-Centered Design of Care Process Improvements in HIT  
Project 2A Cognitive Foundations for Decision Making: Implications for Decision Support  
Project 2B Modeling of Setting-Specific Factors to Enhance Clinical Decision Support Adaptation  
Project 3 Automated Model-based Clinical Summarization of Key Patient Data  
Project 4 Cognitive Information Design and Visualization: Enhancing Accessibility and Understanding  of Patient Data  
Project 5 Improving Communication in Distributed Team Environment  

3. Health Application and Network Platform Architectures
http://www.smartplatforms.org
Harvard University
Substitutable Medical Apps, reusable technologiesSMArt App

“A platform with substitutable apps constructed around core services is a promising approach to driving down healthcare costs, supporting standards evolution, accommodating differences in care workflow, fostering competition in the market, and accelerating innovation.”

The March 26, 2009 essay by Kenneth D. Mandl, MD, MPH, and Isaac S. Kohane, MD, PhD,   in New England Journal of Medicine  “No Small Change for the Health Information Economy”. They wrote “A health care system adapting to the effects of an aging population, growing expenditures, and a diminishing primary care workforce needs the support of a flexible information infrastructure that facilitates innovation in wellness, health care, and public health.” They reference the flexbility of applications and the stable platform provided by the iPhone.

HTML: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/360/13/1278
PDF: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/reprint/360/13/1278.pdf

Ten principles were developed at a subsuquent workshop setup on May 13, 2009 by the”Informatics Program at Children’s Hospital Boston (CHIP) “of leading experts in health, innovation and technology to define ten core principles of a platform that would support healthcare information technology.”  See “Ten Principles for Fostering Development of an ‘iPhone-like’ Platform for Healthcare Information Technology”

4. Secondary Use of EHR Data
http://sharpn.org
Mayo Clinic College of Medicine
Per Mayo Clinic College of Medicine Wiki: “We propose research that will generate a framework of open-source services that can be dynamically configured to transform EHR data into standards-conforming, comparable information suitable for large-scale analyses, inferencing, and integration of disparate health data. We will apply these services to phenotype recognition (disease, risk factor, eligibility, or adverse event) in medical centers and population-based settings. Finally, we will examine data quality and repair strategies with real-world evaluations of their behavior in Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSAs), health information exchanges (HIEs), and National Health Information Network (NHIN) connections.

“We have assembled a federated informatics research community committed to open-source resources that can industrially scale to address barriers to the broad-based, facile, and ethical use of EHR data for secondary purposes. We will collaborate to create, evaluate, and refine informatics artifacts that advance the capacity to efficiently leverage EHR data to improve care, generate new knowledge, and address population needs. Our goal is to make these artifacts available to the community of secondary EHR data users, manifest as open-source tools, services, and scalable software. In addition, we have partnered with industry developers who can make these resources available with commercial deployment. We propose to assemble modular services and agents from existing open-source software to improve the utilization of EHR data for a spectrum of use-cases and focus on three themes: Normalization, Phenotypes, and Data Quality/Evaluation. Our six projects span one or more of these themes, though together constitute a coherent ensemble of related research and development. Finally, these services will have open-source deployments as well as commercially supported implementations.

“There are six strongly intertwined, mutually dependent projects, including: 1) Semantic and Syntactic Normalization; 2) Natural Language Processing (NLP); 3) Phenotype Applications; 4) Performance Optimization; 5) Data Quality Metrics; and 6) Evaluation Frameworks. The first two projects align with our Data Normalization theme, while Phenotype Applications and Performance Optimization span themes 1 and 2 (Normalization and Phenotyping); while the last two projects correspond to our third theme.”

SHARP Program Organization
SHARP Area 4: Themes & Projects
Project Initiation Meeting Slides PDF

For more recent post about SHARP Program on e-Healthcare Marketing, click here.

Regenstrief Updates LOINC for Electronic Health Info Exchange

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June 7 Release for Updated Lingua Franca for Electronic Health Info Exchange
Press Release from Indiana University School of Medicine on June 3, 2010:
INDIANAPOLIS — As the practice, regulation and reimbursement of health care become more complicated, and as the demand for electronic medical records and health information exchange grows, a universal method of identifying test results and other clinical measurement is essential.

The standardized medical terminology system called Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes, known as LOINC®, with a 57,000 term code vocabulary meets that need. LOINC provides the lingua franca needed for the creation of an electronic medical record and for health information to be electronically exchanged. The latest version of LOINC will be released on June 7.

LOINC has been developed by Regenstrief Institute investigators so that results of the same test – cholesterol level, or the same clinical observation – blood pressure reading, for example, can be compared by different institutions for the purposes of patient care, research, quality assessment or outcomes management. It is these codes that also are critical to computerized transmission of medical information.

“Our fragmented health-care system makes it difficult to deliver the best care possible because we lack complete, accurate information about our patients. Interconnected electronic record systems are beginning to overcome some of these challenges. As we move toward a national information infrastructure, LOINC fills a crucial role as a common vocabulary that allows clinical results from different sources to be electronically aggregated in systems for providers when and where they need it” said Regenstrief investigator Daniel Vreeman, PT, DPT, assistant research professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine and director of the LOINC development activities at Regenstrief.

LOINC began in the mid 1990’s when Regenstrief investigators, using their decades of experience with electronic medical records, began the Indiana Network for Patient Care, the nation’s first citywide health information exchange. The researcher clinicians found they could receive data from various INPC member institutions but that the clinical content was difficult to interpret because each used a different code for the same test or observation so it was like receiving messages in French, Spanish and Italian when all they could understand was English.

They decided to develop a lingua franca and LOINC was born. From the beginning it has been a free and open system, encouraging additions, comments and feedback. Two new versions of LOINC are issued annually, with more than 2,000 new terms for tests or clinical observations per release. These new additions are based on requests from end users.

Over the past seven years, more than 130 health-care organizations around the world, including the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. departments of defense and veterans affairs and individual hospitals have made submissions. In the past two years, users from 131 different countries downloaded the standard more than 23,000 times. LOINC encourages and supports translation of terms and documentation into foreign languages. Currently, portions of the database have been translated into Simplified Chinese, Spanish, French, and Italian and both German and Estonian versions of the documentation also exist.

“With support from the U.S. government and other organizations, the Regenstrief Institute continues to develop LOINC as an open, freely available standard. LOINC’s growing worldwide adoption is a testament to both the need for a common language and the success of this open approach,” said Dr. Vreeman.

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LOINC development is performed under the auspices of the Regenstrief Institute, Inc. and is currently supported in part by Regenstrief Institute, Inc., the National Library of Medicine, the HHS Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Present federal funding totals $3.7 million through 2013, with 75 percent of annual support from federal funding and 25 percent from non-federal sources.

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LOINC Web site
Regenstrief Institute Web site
University of Indiana School of Medicine

New Enrollment Workgroup at Ofc of National Coordinator for Health IT

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June 14: First Meeting for New Enrollment Workgroup:
Office of Nat’l Coordinator for Health IT
Excerpted from June 4, 2010 email:
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has organized a new Enrollment workgroup (subcommittee) under the auspices of the HIT Policy Committee.

This new workgroup is established to respond to a section of the Affordable Care Act, which asks the HIT Policy and HIT Standards Committees to come up with a set of standards which would facilitate enrollment in Federal and state health and human services programs, including offerings by new health insurance exchanges.

This might include standards for:
–Electronic matching across state and Federal data;
–Retrieval and submission of electronic documentation for verification;
–Reuse of eligibility information;
–Capability for individuals to maintain eligibility information online; and
–Notification of eligibility.

The Enrollment Workgroup will be chaired and co-chaired by Aneesh Chopra, Chief Technology Officer, and Sam Karp, California Health Care Foundation, respectively.  Membership is currently being determined.

The Enrollment Workgroup will hold its first public meeting on Monday, June 14, 2010, at the Washington Marriott at Metro Center, 775 12th Street, NW, Washington, DC, noon to 5 pm/EDT. See the ONC Website (http://healthit.hhs.gov/FACAs) for details.
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Click here to go directly to the Enrollment Workgroup page on ONC site.

HHS Awards $83.9 Mil ARRA to Expand Use of Health IT at HCCNs

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HHS Awards $83.9 Million in Recovery Act Funds to
Expand Use of Health Information Technology at
Health Center Controlled Networks (HCCNs)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE from HHS Press Office      
Thursday, June 3, 2010         
Received via email                           

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today (June 3, 2010) announced $83.9 million in grants to help networks of health centers adopt electronic health records (EHR) and other health information technology (HIT) systems. The funds are part of the $2 billion allotted to HHS’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to expand health care services to low-income and uninsured individuals through its health center program. 

“We need health information technology to bring our health care system into the 21st century,” said Sebelius. “This essential technology improves the quality of care we all receive and helps make care more efficient.”

Forty-five grants will support new and enhanced EHR implementation projects as well as HIT innovation projects.  Funds will allow grantees to use EHR technology to improve health care quality, efficiency, and patient safety.  Eligible professionals practicing within health centers who are able to demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHR technology may be eligible for incentive payments provided under Medicaid and Medicare. 

“These funds will help safety net providers acquire state-of-the-art health information technology systems as they work to provide quality health care to millions of people in need,” said HRSA Administrator Mary Wakefield, Ph.D., R.N. 

Health Center Controlled Networks (HCCNs) improve the operational effectiveness and clinical quality in health centers by providing management, financial, technology and clinical support services. The networks, comprised of at least three collaborating organizations, are community-based groups that support HRSA-funded health centers that provide primary health care to nearly 19 million patients – a number expected to double over the next five years as health reform is implemented.

The grants listed below were awarded through a competitive process:

ARRA – Health Information Technology Implementation Grants
Organization City State Amount
Whatley Health Services, Inc Tuscaloosa Alabama $645,875
Alaska Primary Care Association, Inc. Anchorage Alaska $567,891
Dena’ Nena’ Henash – Tanana Chiefs Conference Fairbanks Alaska $1,000,000
El Rio Santa Cruz Neighborhood Health Center Tucson Arizona $1,000,000
Golden Valley Health Center Merced California $2,998,013
Association of Asian/Pacific Community Health Organizations Oakland California $1,000,000
Redwood Community Health Network Petaluma California $2,079,598
Family Health Centers of San Diego, Inc San Diego California $3,000,000
Community Access HCCN, LLC San Francisco California $2,519,875
Community Health Center Network San Leandro California $3,000,000
Alliance For Rural Community Health Ukiah California $866,031
Clinicas del Camino Real, Inc Ventura California $3,000,000
Colorado Community Managed Care Network Denver Colorado $1,000,000
Southbridge Med. Advisory Council, Inc. Wilmington Delaware $558,114
Health Choice Network, Inc. Miami Florida $2,990,887
Community Health Centers Alliance, Inc. Saint Petersburg Florida $3,000,000
Erie Family Health Center, Inc Chicago Illinois $999,998
Near North Health Service Corporation Chicago Illinois $2,998,849
Illinois Primary Care Association Springfield Illinois $3,000,000
Community Health Integrated Partnership, Inc. Glen Burnie Maryland $2,912,404
Boston HealthNet Boston Massachusetts $2,986,872
Northern Minnesota Network Isanti Minnesota $2,452,568
Coastal Family Health Center, Inc. Biloxi Minnesota $2,987,714
Missouri Coalition for Primary Health Care Jefferson City Missouri $1,000,000
St. Louis Integrated Health Network St. Louis Missouri $1,000,000
One World Community Health Centers Omaha Nebraska $1,511,083
Community Health Access Network, Inc. Newmarket New Hampshire $1,106,358
Southern Jersey Family Medical Centers, Inc. Hammonton New Jersey $3,000,000
New Mexico Primary Care Association Albuquerque New Mexico $2,011,000
Charles B. Wang Community Health Center, Inc. New York New York $994,800
Community Health Care Association of New York State New York New York $2,999,983
The Institute for Family Health New York New York $825,709
Finger Lakes Migrant Health Care Project, Inc. Penn Yan New York $997,832
OCHIN Inc. Portland Oregon $3,000,000
Health Federation of Philadelphia Philadelphia Pennsylvania $327,169
East Bay Community Action Program Newport Rhode Island $1,574,074
Community Health Network Oakdale Tenn. $2,110,936
Texas Association of Community Health Center Austin Texas $982,587
Lone Star Circle of Care Georgetown Texas $2,987,610
Barrio Comprehensive Family Health Care Center, Inc. San Antonio Texas $2,909,072
Wasatch Homeless Health Care, Inc. Salt Lake City Utah $585,000
Southwest Virginia Community Health Systems, Inc. Saltville Virginia $1,826,240
Bi-State Primary Care Association Montpelier Vermont $2,226,278
PTSO of Washington Seattle Washington $1,361,093
Wisconsin Primary Health Care Association Madison Wisconsin $1,000,000
Total: $83,901,513

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The activities described in this release are being funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). More information on ARRA funding for health information technology can be found at: http://www.hhs.gov/recovery/programs/index.html#Health

The Health Resources and Services Administration is part of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services.  HRSA is the primary federal agency responsible for improving access to health care services for people who are uninsured, isolated, or medically vulnerable.  For more information about HRSA and its programs, visit www.hrsa.gov

 Note: All HHS press releases, fact sheets and other press materials are available at http://www.hhs.gov/news

ONC’s Seidman Blogs on Health IT Disparities Meeting + June 4 Agenda

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Using Health IT to Eliminate Disparities: A Focus on Solutions
Posted originally on Office of Nat’l Coordinator for Health IT’s
Federal Advisory Committee Blog: Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 
by  Joshua Seidman PhD 
See June 4, 2010 Meaningul Use Workgroup Agenda Below

The meaningful use (MU) of electronic health records (EHRs) has great potential to improve the quality, efficiency and safety of health care. If we are not careful, however, benefits may disproportionately accrue to those best positioned to implement and use new technologies. That could have the unintended consequence of growing health, health care and health information disparities.

On the other hand, ignoring technological innovation is not a viable option for preventing exacerbation of disparities. Moreover, many innovators have demonstrated that—deployed thoughtfully—health IT solutions can improve access to, and understanding of, important personal health information.

That is the focus of the June 4 public hearing being convened in Washington, DC by the Health IT Policy Committee’s MU Workgroup. Given the great research that already exists on what causes disparities, we are focusing this discussion specifically on solutions—that is, how can meaningful use of health IT solutions help us reduce disparities?

In this context, disparities can refer to differences in health, health care and health information. They may be caused by inadequate health literacy or by cultural or language issues that affect communication. In many cases, disparities can also be caused by access to care, to technology, or to meaningful and useful health information.

Like the Workgroup’s previous hearing on patient and family engagement, we will build on the live public testimony and discussion through this FACA Blog. The April 20 hearing generated more than 50 thoughtful comments that have been incorporated into the public record as we begin the process of building the definition for future stages of meaningful use.

We hope that we have an equally robust online discussion that provides valuable input on this topic. As with the previous hearing, all comments are welcome but we particularly encourage you to consider the following questions that we posed to the panelists.  

1. What do you see as the greatest risks posed by the implementation of HIT in relationship to potentially increasing disparities in health processes and outcomes? 

2. What are you, or others with whom you work, doing (or planning to do) to reduce the risk of exacerbating disparities as HIT is implemented across the county?

3. What research is being done, or needs to be done, in this area to inform the HIT Policy Committee in trying to establish guidelines that will move providers to implement methods of using HIT to reduce disparities?

4. With patient and family engagement in care at the forefront of our thinking about improving our Nation’s health, what particular strategies would you recommend to us as potential meaningful use requirements in 2013 and 2015 for the vulnerable populations we have asked you to address?

5. How can the meaningful use of HIT specifically reduce a health disparity?

6. What specific HIT applications have been used to address health literacy (panel 1), culture (panel 2), or access (panel 3)?

7. Please share any relevant evidence on your topic.

Additional Questions for the Access Panel:

What tools can be used to improve access for those who face access barriers to healthcare or technology?

What are the most innovative solutions you have seen to overcome these challenges?
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To post comments directly on FACA blog article, click here.

AGENDA (pdf version) excerpted from ONC site
HIT Policy Committee Meaningful Use Workgroup
Friday, June 4, 2010
9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m./Eastern Time
Washington, DC

Hearing on “Using HIT to Eliminate Disparities: A Focus on Solutions”
“As providers across the country begin to meaningfully use health information technology to improve care to vulnerable populations, we acknowledge the need to pay special attention to ensuring that we are improving disparities in healthcare processes and outcomes, not exacerbating them.”

9:00 a.m. Call to Order/Roll Call – Judy Sparrow, Office of the National Coordinator
9:05 a.m. Meeting Objectives and Outcomes:
Using HIT to Eliminate Disparities: A Focus on Solutions
– George Hripcsak, Co-Chair, and Neil Calman, The Institute for Family Health
9:15 a.m. Panel 1: Health Literacy & Data Collection
Moderator: Neil Calman
–Sara Czaja, University of Miami
–Cynthia Solomon, MiVia
–Geniene Wilson, The Institute for Family Health
–Silas Buchanan, The Cave Institute
10:45 a.m. Panel 2: Culture
Moderator: Joshua Seidman
–Russell Davis, National Health IT Collaborative for the Underserved
–M. Chris Gibbons, Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute
–Dianne Hasselman, Center for Health Care Strategies
–Deeana Jang, Asian/Pacific Islander American Health Forum
12:15 p.m. LUNCH BREAK
1:15 p.m. Panel 3: Access
Moderator: George Hripcsak
–Carolyn Clancy, Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality, HHS
–Howard Hays, MD, Indian Health Service, HHS
–Ian Erlich, Maniilaq Association, Alaska
–R. Scott Hawkins, Boston Healthcare for the Homeless
–Cesar Palacios, Proyecto Salud Clinic
2:45 p.m. Meaningful Use Workgroup Discussion
3:15 p.m. Public Comment
3:30 p.m. Adjourn

To participate:
Webconference or iPhone
Audio
You may listen in via computer or telephone.
US toll free:   1-877-705-2976
International Direct:  1-201-689-8798

Open Government Initiative–HHS Opens Data to New Applications

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News Roundup: HHS Challenges Developers to Find Ways to Bring Data to Life for Better Healthcare
Jennifer Lubell of Modern Healthcare reported on June 2, 2010 “HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Harvey Fineberg, president of the Institute of Medicine, unveiled the Community Health Data Initiative (CHDI), a national effort to promote the use of community health data to spur innovation and development of new applications.”

Mary Mosquera of Government HealthIT reported on June 2, 2010 “Under the Community Health Data Initiative (CHDI), HHS is turning to developers of Web applications, mobile phone applications, social media, and other cutting-edge information technologies to ‘put our public health data to work,’ said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in the June 2 announcement.”

J0seph Goedert of Health Data Management reported on June 2, 2010 “HHS by year-end will implement a new Health Indicators Warehouse providing online access to HHS data on national, state, regional and county health performance. Data will include such indicators as rates of smoking, obesity, diabetes, access to healthy food and utilization of health care services.”

Link to Video: Forum on Community Health Data Initiative held June 2, 2010 on Open HHS site.

Links to excerpts from HHS Community Health Data Initiative on e-Healthcare Marketing.

Putting Data and Innovation to Work to Help Communities and Consumers Improve Health
HHS Press Release from June 2, 2010 on national initiative:
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Institute of Medicine President Harvey Fineberg today launched a national initiative to share a wealth of new community health data that will drive innovation and lead to the creation of new applications and tools to improve the health of Americans.  

To help citizens, clinicians and local leaders use data to improve health and value of health care, the Community Health Data Initiative (CHDI) is turning to Web application developers, mobile phone applications, social media, and other cutting-edge information technologies to “put our public health data to work.”

“Our national health data constitute a precious resource that we are paying billions to assemble, but then too often wasting,” Secretary Sebelius said. “When information sits on the shelves of government offices, it is underperforming. We need to bring these data alive. If made easily accessible by the public, our data can help raise awareness of health status and trigger efforts to improve it. The data can help our communities determine where action is most needed and what approaches might be most helpful. 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.”

“In every science-based endeavor, data are the key to effective action,” said Dr. Fineberg. “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 health information in the future.”

The Initiative was announced at a Community Health Data Forum on June 2 at the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine (IOM). Federal and community leaders were joined by developers and technology pioneers who demonstrated 16 innovative applications that make use of publicly available health data. Most of the sample applications have been developed or refined in the three months since HHS and IOM hosted a meeting on March 11 to explore the feasibility of an effort along the lines of the CHDI.

At the heart of the Initiative, increasing amounts of federally generated community health data will be made publicly available, in easily accessible and useful formats. Secretary Sebelius announced that by the end of 2010, a new HHS Health Indicators Warehouse will be deployed online, providing currently available and new HHS data on 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, etc. – in an easy-to-use “one stop data shop.” The Warehouse will also include information on proven ways to improve performance on particular indicators. Users will be able to explore all of this data on the Warehouse Web site, download any and all of it for free, and integrate it easily into their own Web sites and applications.

The Initiative envisions an expanding array of applications being built using HHS’ data, as well as data supplied by other sources. Community leaders, consumers, employers, providers, and others can choose among independently developed applications to help in health assessment, planning and action. The CHDI does not endorse particular applications, but rather enables their independent development through easier access to expanded, free data. Communities, professionals and consumers can then choose the applications they find most useful.

An initial sampling of applications was demonstrated at the Forum today, providing an intriguing glimpse into the kinds of creative innovations the Initiative seeks to spur. The demonstrations included Web tools that allow citizens to easily understand health performance in one county versus another, dashboards that allow civic leaders to get a detailed understanding of their community’s health status and how they might improve it, an online game that enables players to learn local health status facts, enhanced Web search that integrates hospital performance data into hospital search results, and mobile phone-based tools that put exciting new health information at consumers’ fingertips.

To learn more about the Community Health Data Initiative, please visit www.hhs.gov/open.
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Community Health Data Initiative: June 2 Webcast Archive from HHS and IOM

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Dept of Health and Human Services and Institute of Medicine Forum
on Launch of CHDI–Community Health Data Initiative
http://www.hhs.gov/open 
Archived Video:
http://www.hhs.gov/open/datasets/initiative_launch.html

The material below is all excerpted from  HHS Open site.
“The Community Health Data Initiative will be launched in a Forum at the Institute of Medicine in Washington, D.C., on June 2, 2010 (at 9:00am EDT).  Opening speakers will be IOM President Harvey Fineberg, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and HHS Deputy Secretary Bill Corr.  About 15 new applications will be demonstrated, making health data available in new formats.  The new applications have been developed by a range of corporations and others, from IT giants to smaller companies and non-profits.   The Forum is open to media.  It will be viewable by webcast June 2 at 9 a.m. ET. 
Update: Now archived–click on video image below.

HHS CHDI Forum Video

HHS CHDI Forum Video

According to HHS Chief Technology Officer Todd Park, “Under the initiative, HHS health data will be made freely available so that software developers can create innovative applications and make the data more useful for consumers and communities. At the June 2 event, Secretary Sebelius explains the initiative, and early developers demonstrated their new applications. See more at the HHS OpenGov website http://www.hhs.gov/open/datasets/communityhealthdata.html.” 

“HHS and the Institute of Medicine will launch a national initiative to help consumers and communities get more value out of the Nation’s wealth of health data.  Under the Community Health Data Initiative:

  • HHS will release greater amounts of health data in more usable formats
  • Software developers will use the data to create new applications that will make health information increasingly useful for individuals and communities
  • With improved data and creative new applications, communities and consumers will initiate effective new efforts in disease prevention, health promotion and measurement of health care quality and performance. “

Community Health Data Forum: Harnessing the Power of Information to Improve Health
Originally posted May 27, 2010 by Todd Park, HHS CTO, on Open HHS Blog and re-posted below.  

By Todd Park 

HHS Frameworks: Click to Enlarge
HHS Frameworks: Click to Enlarge

” The purpose of the Initiative is to help Americans understand health performance in our communities and to spark action to improve health–by making HHS’s vast stores of data on community health easily accessible by the public and putting it in the hands of innovators who can turn it into super cool new applications.”

On behalf of the HHS Open Government team, I’m really excited to share some important news in our continuing work to liberate HHS data in the name of improving health! 

As those of you who checked out our Open Government Plan may recall, one of our flagship Open Government efforts is a campaign we’re calling the Community Health Data Initiative. The purpose of the Initiative is to help Americans understand health performance in our communities and to spark action to improve health – by making HHS’s vast stores of data on community health easily accessible by the public and putting it in the hands of innovators who can turn it into super cool new applications. 

On Wednesday, June 2, HHS and the Institute of Medicine will host a big public meeting on the Community Health Data Initiative that will showcase what early innovators have been able to do with our data — the Community Health Data Forum: Harnessing the Power of Information to Improve Health. You can join a webcast of this Forum at http://www.hhs.gov/open on June 2 at 9 a.m. ET. (View Agenda). Come join Secretary Sebelius, Deputy Secretary Bill Corr, Harvey Fineberg, Aneesh Chopra, and me as we celebrate an initial glimpse into what community health data combined with innovation mojo can do and discuss the path forward! 

Let me share a bit of the story behind this. On March 11, the Institute of Medicine and HHS convened health care experts, technology developers, Web 2.0 visionaries, and others to explore what could be done with HHS’s community health data. The group brainstormed an incredibly cool set of ideas – and then, even more impressively, volunteered to pursue the development of many of them, roping in additional folks along the way. In the less than 90 days since that meeting, more than a dozen new or improved data applications using HHS’s community health data have been developed! These are applications that can help raise awareness of community health performance, help civic leaders and consumers understand how best to improve health, and put vital health information at one’s fingertips in creative new ways. I am dying to tell you more about these apps, but have been sworn to secrecy. If you want to know more, you’ll just have to check out the webcast on June 2. 

And we’d very much like to hear your thoughts about the different applications that get presented on June 2 and on the Community Health Data Initiative overall. If you’re willing, please post your comments (on Tod Park’s Open HHS blog. ) Looking forward to hanging out with folks on the webcast next Wednesday(June 2, 2010)! 

To learn more about and download HHS data resources being provided as part of the Community Health Data Initiative (CHDI), select this button (link) to go to the interim CHDI data sources webpage. 

More information about the Community Health Data Initiative and HHS Data Sources can be found here.
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For June 2, 2010 agenda, see below. 

About Todd Park
“Todd Park joined HHS as Chief Technology Officer in August 2009. In this role, he is responsible for helping HHS leadership harness the power of data, technology, and innovation to improve the health and welfare of the nation. Mr. Park co-founded Athenahealth in 1997 and co-led its development over the following decade into one of the most innovative, socially-oriented, and successful health information technology companies in the industry. Prior to Athenahealth, he served as a management consultant with Booz Allen & Hamilton, focusing on health care strategy, technology, and operations. Mr. Park has also served in a volunteer capacity as a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he focused on health IT and health reform policy, and as senior health care advisor to Ashoka, a leading global incubator of social entrepreneurs, where he helped start a venture to bring affordable telehealth, drugs, diagnostics, and clean water to rural India. Mr. Park graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College with an A.B. in economics.”
 
Data Sets
Two types of data sets are available.  Downloads  are open-format data sets presented in csv, xml or other downloadable formats.  Interactive data sets can be manipulated on the Web.  You may search by keyword, HHS Agency and/or type.  New data sets are being added regularly. The links available on the Open HHS Data Pages will take you to Data.gov where you can access the data set, rate it, and view additional details.

Tools
Two types of tools are presently available. Widgets  are code-bearing graphic elements that allow you add HHS content or functionality to your Web product.  RSS are syndication feeds that allow you to automatically import HHS content into your Web product. You may search by keyword, HHS Agency and/or type.  New tools are being added regularly. The links available on the Open HHS Tools Pages will take you to Data.gov where you can access the data set, rate it, and view additional details.

HHS Open Government Plan

Table of Contents

Executive Summary (PDF – 132KB) 

1     Introduction (PDF – 112KB) 

2     Leadership, Governance, and Culture Change (PDF – 134KB) 
2.1  How We Developed Our Open Government Plan 
2.2  How Open Government Efforts Will Be Led at HHS 
2.3. How Open Government Supports Our Strategic Goals 
2.4  How We Will Support Our Employees in the Pursuit of Open Government 
2.5  How We Will Measure the Success of Open Government at HHS 
2.6  How We Will Seek to Collaborate with Other Agencies on Open Government Efforts 

3     Transparency (PDF – 1.24MB) 
3.1  HHS Data Currently Available for Download 
3.2  New High-Value Data Sets and Tools 
3.3  New HHS Process for Ongoing Data Prioritization, Release, and Monitoring  
3.4  Compliance with IT Dashboard, eRulemaking, Data.gov, Recovery.gov, and USASpending.gov Guidance   
3.5  How HHS Will Inform the Public About the Business of Our Agency  
3.6  How HHS Is Meeting Current Records Management Requirements  
3.7  HHS and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 
3.8  HHS and Congressional Requests for Information 
3.9  HHS and Information Declassification  

4     Participation and Collaboration (PDF – 155KB) 
4.1  Participation – How HHS Currently Engages the Public 
4.2  Collaboration – How HHS Agencies Work with Outside Entities 
4.3  HHS Strategic Plan for Participation and Collaboration 
4.4  Featured Activities for Participation and Collaboration 
4.5  Looking Beyond the Horizon 

5     HHS Flagship Initiatives (PDF- 342KB) 
5.1  CMS Dashboard 
5.2  FDA Transparency Initiative 
5.3   FDA-TRACK 
5.4   FOIA Excellence 
5.5   Community Health Data Initiative 

 Conclusion (PDF – 104KB) 

AGENDA-June 2, 2010
NAS Building (2100 C Street, NW)
Washington, DC
Wednesday, June 2, 2010

7:45 a.m. Registration Opens
9:00 a.m. – 9:20 a.m. Plenary Welcome (NAS Auditorium) 

Harvey V. Fineberg, President, IOM
The Honorable Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, HH  
Deputy Secretary Bill Corr, HHS  
9:20 a.m. – 10:15 a.m. Showcase of Tools and Applications in Development
10:15 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. Overview of Current Efforts and Future Directions Todd Park, Chief Technology Officer, HHS  Aneesh Chopra, Associate Director & Chief Technology Officer, Office of Science & Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President  
10:30 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. Innovation Expo (NAS Great Hall)
12:15 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Afternoon Sessions (Optional)
2:00 p.m. Adjournment

 

Beacon Community Program: Technical Call – June 1, 1pm EDT

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Office of Nat’l Coordinator for Health IT Technical Assistance Call:
Tuesday 6/1/10, 1:00 – 2:00 PM EDT  (Link to slides below)
Excerpted from Office of National Coordinator for Health IT Web site and email on 6/1/10:
“An additional $30.3 million is currently available to fund two additional Beacon Community cooperative agreement awards.  Please note that the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology is accepting Letters of Intent from potential applicants until 11:59 PM EDT June 9, 2010.”

“In addition, as was announced last week, ONC will be hosting a Technical Assistance call for potential applicants today, Tuesday, June 1 at 1:00 PM EDT.  This call will be a presentation on preparing proposals for this cooperative agreement. The purpose of this note is to pass on the specific dial-in information for today’s call.”

Technical Assistance Call (for round 2 Beacon applicants):  6/1/2010

Previous Technical Assistance Calls

Technical Assistance Call: 12/14/09

Technical Assistance Call:  1/20/2010

Learn more about the Beacon Community Cooperative Agreement Program:

ONC Plans new Privacy and Security Task Force

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Chief Privacy Officer for Health IT Joy Pritts
announces new Privacy & Security Task Force
Per slide (ppt slide set) from May 26, 2010 Privacy and Security Workgroup of Health IT Standards Committee, ONC Chief Privacy Officer “Joy Pritts (had) talked to Workgroup about ONC’s plan to create a Privacy and Security Task Force, under HITPC (HIT Policy Committee), to work intensively over the summer to define privacy and security policy to be applied consistently across ONC projects and programs.”
“–Workgroup encouraged involvement of technical experts in Task Force and offered support.
“–Privacy and Security Workgroup efforts to consider and recommend standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria will abate pending policy decisions from the new Task Force.”

Howard Anderson, Managing Editor of HealthcareInfoSecurity.com reported ” ‘it became quite apparent that a number of workgroups were working on little pieces of this at the same time, and the issues were overlapping, and we didn’t really want to proceed in that fashion very much longer,’ Pritts told a meeting of ONC’s Health Information Technology Policy Committee on May 26.”

Blumenthal Calls for Health IT Success stories on HIT Buzz Blog

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Blumenthal’s Latest Post on ONC Blog:
Health IT Journey: Stories from the Road
Thursday, May 27, 2010;
Originally posted  on
Health IT Buzz blog by Dr. David Blumenthal                        

Across the country, in practices large and small, urban and rural, general and specialized, health care providers are beginning their journey towards the meaningful use of electronic health records (EHRs). Some practices are in the preliminary stages of learning about health IT, while others have already implemented systems and are using them to the benefit of patients.

We believe these real life experiences are valuable tools to share with other providers so they can learn from each other’s successes and the “speed bumps” along the way.  To facilitate this beneficial exchange, ONC has launched a new feature on its website—Health IT Journey: Stories from the Road. The site will be dedicated to collecting and sharing the personal experiences of real-world health IT users, and the lessons they have learned.

While the Regional Extension Centers will offer hands on assistance, and the Health Information Technology Research Center will disseminate best practices, Health IT Journeys will contribute a more personal component to the base of knowledge that will ultimately bring the meaningful use of health IT from vision to reality.

If you have struggled with a specific aspect of implementation, then no doubt other providers have, too. If you have discovered efficiencies and creative solutions, then others will likely benefit from your knowledge. You can make a difference in efforts to ensure the nationwide adoption of EHRs simply by sharing your story.

 For example: 

  • How did you decide on and then introduce health IT into your practice?
  • How are you working meaningful use of health IT into the day-to-day management of your practice?
  • What challenges have you faced along the way, and how did you overcome those challenges?
  • How is health IT affecting the quality of care you provide to your patients?

Let us know your experience.

With your help, we can make care better through the use of EHRs.
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ONC requested that success stories be sent to: onc.request@hhs.gov

See previous post on e-Healthcare Marketing.