Digital talk Blog

The New Healthcare.gov Uses a Lightweight Open Source Tool

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:54:47 +0000

David Cole, Development Seed with contributions from Chris Bernstein, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

This is a cross-post from a Development Seed blog about upcoming improvements to Healthcare.gov. The author is a contractor leading the technical strategy and development of heathcare.gov. From his work previously on President Obama's White House staff, he is a known advocate of open source software and government innovation.

Last week, we told you about the upcoming relaunch of Healthcare.gov and its use of the Jekyll website generator. Jekyll allows users to build dynamic websites served by static pages. To help manage large websites using Jekyll, developers working on the new healthcare.gov published the ‘Prose.io’ editing interface last year. Content editors will use this lightweight editor to create and manage content across the site.

Prose is an open source web application that allows users to manage web content stored on GitHub’s code sharing service. It offers the convenience of a content management system (CMS) for managing the site, without the reduction in speed and response time that results from the web server processing and databases required for typical content management systems.

Prose has over ten thousand users, and is the result of dozens of community contributions from open source developers. As part of the relaunching of Healthcare.gov, we are making additional usability improvements that will benefit all users of this free service.

Our improvements to the Prose interface for authoring content includes better previewing, a refined user dashboard, and a user-friendly metadata editor. These updates will be rolled out in the coming weeks leading up to the relaunch of Healthcare.gov.

Jekyll and the Prose editing interface allow the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to abandon use of a complex content management system for both the serving AND editing of content. Instead, a CMS-type interface is just applied to the editing tools. This frees time to invest in a better design and content experience, as well as greatly simplifies the maintenance overhead of running the website. We estimate the Jekyll-supported Healthcare.gov will require approximately 30 less servers than current CMS-based implementations. That's because no matter how many visits the website gets, we only require one server to pre-generate Healthcare.gov content and push it to a content distribution network for public access.

Site Tags:

Content Strategy, Entrepreneur

Apps4TotsHealth Challenge

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 17:05:51 +0000

Chris Bernstein, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Last month we told you about the launch of the TXT4Tots Message Library and the potential it offers for developers. Heathdata.gov recently converted this database into an application program interface (API), and today we’re proud to announce the Apps4TotsHealth Challenge.

The Apps4TotsHealth Challenge is a call for developers, researchers, and other innovators to make use of the Healthdata.gov data API and integrate the TXT4Tots message library into a new or existing platform. Submission due date is May 20. A total of $25,000 is available for prize winners.

Please see Challenge.gov for more information.

Site Tags:

API, Entrepreneur

New Healthcare.gov is Open, CMS-Free

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 14:09:28 +0000

David Cole, Development Seed with contributions from Chris Bernstein, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

This is a cross-post from a Development Seed blog about upcoming improvements to Healthcare.gov. The author is a contractor leading the technical strategy and development of heathcare.gov. From his work previously on President Obama's White House staff, he is a known advocate of open source software and government innovation.

Recently HHS CTO Bryan Sivak outlined a new vision for healthcare.gov. The site will relaunch this June with a completely rethought design and architecture.

The new healthcare.gov follows a new CMS-free philosophy. It will be a completely static website, generated by Jekyll . This shift will allow HHS to move away from the use of a content management system for managing Heathcare.gov. Website generators like Jekyll work by combining template files with content and rendering them to static html pages. These generator tools provide a balance between content creation and editing flexibility resulting in an incredibly fast and reliable website.

The new website’s code and content will be accessible in two important ways. First, everything HHS does will be published on GitHub . GitHub is an open source code repository developers can use to share and collaborate on projects. This service is the new standard for sharing and collaborating on all sorts of projects , from city geographic data and laws to home renovation projects and even wedding planning, as well as traditional software projects.

With the new Heathcare.gov’s code available on GitHub others will be able to reuse the entire code-base as they see fit. This is incredibly valuable because some states will set up their own state-based health insurance marketplaces. They will be able to easily check out and build upon the work being done at the federal level.

The second key component of the new heathcare.gov’s openness is that all content will be available through an API. This is a tool that allows for the reuse of information and content. Other governmental or private sector websites will be able to use the API to embed content from healthcare.gov. As official content gets updated on healthcare.gov, the new content will update automatically appear on websites using the healthcare.gov API.

As we redesign Heathcare.gov we will be posting blogs related to the project here. If you have questions or comments about the changes let us know.

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API, Content Strategy

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Pillbox Opens Data to the Public

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:33:56 +0000

Nicholas Garlow, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Pillbox is opening up government data. Government agencies, communities who need to solve challenges, members of the medical field, and public citizens can all benefit from this application. Project Manager David Hale designed Pillbox with the intent to make government data accessible and usable for the public.

What is Pillbox?

Pillbox is a web based program that allows you to visually identify unknown medications online. The process of building the tool has proven to Hale that when you bring together the expertise of the government and the needs of the public, you can create a better product than you expected.

How is Pillbox making government data accessible to the public?

We spoke with Hale to better understand how cross-collaboration between government agencies and the public can lead to success. Listen to the podcast to learn what the tool is and how it benefits you.

Link to Podcast

Transcript

You’re listening to The HHS Center for New Media podcast, where new and innovative media projects are introduced, shared, and discussed.

“As a government agency, as public health agency, we are the experts in our data. We’re the subject matter experts.”

David Hale works at the National Library of Medicine, and is Project Manager for Pillbox.

“But citizens and communities and health IT developers…they’re the experts in the context and how this is used at the point of care.”

Pillbox is a web based program that lets users visually identify unknown medications based on color, size, shape, imprint and score.

“So when you click on the shape tab, you see silhouetted shapes of different types of drugs. When you click on the size tab, there’s a little slider, an image of a pill, and a dime, and you move that slider.”

The process for creating that tool has brought together government agencies including the National Library of Medicine, Food & Drug Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

We designed that so that it was really language independent. It doesn’t matter if you’re a native English speaker or not. It’s really built on more iconography than it is on reading text.”

Bringing pharmacists, computer scientists, and database administrators together allowed Hale and his team to combine drug label data with generic and brand name medications.

“It’s that partnership between the National Library of Medicine and the Food and Drug Administration that’s really benefited the project in terms of taking our own data and restructuring it in a way that can be used outside of the government.”

Hale involved citizens and communities in building the program. He talked to emergency medical staff, physicians, and the public to gain a better understanding of how Pillbox could empower people to indentify unknown medications.

“We believe that you need to bring those citizens and those communities into your development process prior to releasing that data.”

For Hale and his team, that’s one of their most important lessons.

“Bring them in, show them the data, talk to them about the challenges their facing, and work with them to restructure that data in a way that’s useful for them.”

The latest development of Pillbox is an API, or Application Programming Interface. The API allows people to leverage the data sets to build their own applications.

“By doing this, we free ourselves from the platform and we really start to focus on the data, and that’s led us to this idea of driving traffic to our data, instead of driving traffic to our website…and that’s the model we’re trying to follow is to push our data as far out as we can so that it can be leveraged by really anyone who has a use for that data.”

To learn more about Pillbox, visit Pillbox.nlm.nih.gov. If you would like to get in contact with David Hale, you can email him at david.hale@mail.nih.gov.

You’ve been listening to The HHS Center for New Media podcast, where new and innovative media projects are introduced, shared, and discussed. If you have a project, media tool, or idea that you want to share with other HHS employees, please contact newmedia@hhs.gov.

Thanks for listening. I’m Nicholas Garlow.

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API

Calling all Innovators: Demo @ the Next Health Datapalooza

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:21:41 +0000

Todd Park, US Chief Technology Officer/ Bryan Sivak, Chief Technology Officer, HHS

This is a cross-post from a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy blog.

“Transformation” is the best description of what is happening in health care right now. We are seeing historic changes in how health care is administered in the United States—with increased focus on quality of care versus just paying for a service. We are seeing changes in how people can enroll in health insurance—with the upcoming establishment of a new market place that will help more people get insured in this country than ever before. And, we are seeing changes in how people understand and make decisions about their own health—with an increasing number of tools and services becoming available to help individuals access health information and manage their own personal health data.

Data is fuel for innovation, and developers and entrepreneurs are key players who can turn that fuel into innovations that matter. That’s why one of the many ways the Federal Government is contributing to the transformation of health care is by unleashing vast amounts of data from the vaults of government, while rigorously protecting privacy. These public data resources, made openly available in machine-readable form, include a broad range of useful information—from comparison data about different health insurance plans, to product recall data from the Food and Drug Administration, to epidemiological data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to scientific information from the National Institutes of Health, and much more. In the hands of developers, innovators, and entrepreneurs, these data are powering game-changing solutions, with much more on the way.

If you or your company has developed an application, service, or sensor fueled by health data, YOU could be featured at the fourth annual Health Datapalooza (HDP IV) on June 3 – 4, 2013, by applying here by April 5, 2013.

The Health Datapalooza is the biggest meeting of health data professionals, developers, entrepreneurs, government officials, venture capitalists, and investors in the Nation. Any developer or company that completes the application process will receive a discount code that reduces the cost of registration to attend.

Apply today to be part of Health Datapalooza IV—get exposure for your products and services, network with fellow innovators, and build connections that can help your company grow.

Site Tags:

API, Entrepreneur, Security Privacy

HHS.gov/DigitalStrategy Version 3.0

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 05:00:00 +0000

Chris Bernstein, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

In January we told you how we made HHS.gov/DigitalStrategy mobile friendly. Putting the site in responsive design was the first significant update we made to the site since it launched in August 2012.

Today we’re happy to show you version 3.0, with updated landing pages and a new tagging system.

Landing Pages

This site’s structure aligns with the general principles of the Digital Government Strategy. This enables us to meet the Strategy’s requirement to report on our progress towards its milestones. However, we want the site to do more. We see HHS.gov/DigitalStrategy as an opportunity to highlight examples of best practices in digital communications across the Department.

As we’ve published content over the last six months, articles have fallen into five primary categories. These are what you see in the site’s main level navigation. While the blog serves as our editorial section, the first four sections—People First, Open Data, Mobile, and Working Better—are similar to the topic sections of a newspaper. Within each section, you can find different stories on that topic area, offering insights or best practice recommendations.

To reinforce the distinction between the four topic sections and the blogs, we’ve updated the landing pages to showcase all of the stories we offer on that topic. These updated landing pages show you what is going on in the people first, mobile, open data, and working better realm around HHS.

Developing a Tagging System

From Google Analytics, we learned that visitors are unlikely to enter the site from the homepage. Instead, visitors enter through a specific article or on the landing page of one of the site’s sections. Knowing this, we thought visitors would benefit from having easier access to related content. We achieved this by cross-connecting content with topic based tags.

After reviewing each article and blog post on the site, we found that content fell into 18 different categories. We used these categories to create individual tags, which we then assigned to each page. You can find the tags on the right under ‘Popular Topics.’ We offer a short description of the tag’s meaning on its specific page.

In addition, we’re using visualization software in the right rail of the site to weight the popularity of each tag based on the number of articles and blogs we have related to it. As you can see, at the time of this post, we’ve had a lot of ‘public engagement’ stories and fewer ‘Medicare’ items.

Users can also click the tags at the top of each article and blog to find related stories.

Future Development

We plan to use this site as a test bed for new ideas at HHS. Soon we will be launching improvements to our commenting system, which will allow you to post comments using your own names or pseudonyms, thumbs up ideas, and get email alerts so you can follow comments on a post.

What other features would you like to see us try out here?

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Content Strategy

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Top 10 Innovations of 2012

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 18:30:52 +0000

Chris Bernstein, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

2012 was a busy year for innovation at HHS. Hear from Bryan Sivak, Chief Technology Officer and Entrepreneur in Residence for HHS, as he lists the top 10 accomplishments in innovation at the Department. Accomplishments include the adoption of a Department-wide collaboration tool to the development of even more applications using healthdata.

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Roll Up Your Sleeves, Get Involved, and Get Civic-Hacking

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 15:06:45 +0000

Brian Forde, Senior Advisor for Mobile and Data Innovation, U.S. CTO Nicholas Skytland, Program Manager, NASA’s Open Innovation Program

This is a cross-post from a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy blog.

Civic Hacking Day is an opportunity for software developers, technologists, and entrepreneurs to unleash their can-do American spirit by collaboratively harnessing publicly-released data and code to create innovative solutions for problems that affect Americans. While civic hacking communities have long worked to improve our country and the world, this summer will mark the first time local developers from across the Nation unite around the shared mission of addressing and solving challenges relevant to OUR blocks, OUR neighborhoods, OUR cities, OUR states, and OUR country.

National Day of Civic Hacking is a call to action for anyone who wants to make a positive impact on their town, city, and country. A coalition of leading organizations, companies, and government agencies have banded together to issue this challenge with the goal of promoting transparency, participation, and collaboration among governments, startups, and citizens. These partners will support Civic Hacking Day by hosting activities across the country that invite anyone to become part of the civic hacker community—whether you’re a newbie or an expert—and by connecting people in person or online during the weekend celebration.

The event is taking place in conjunction with Random Hacks of Kindness and Code for America‘s Brigade meetings and is being modeled after the Innovation Endeavors ’ Super Happy Block Party.

This is an opportunity for citizens in every town and city across the Nation to roll up their sleeves, get involved, and work together to improve our society by cultivating an ecosystem for innovation and change. Activities are already being planned in Augusta, GA; Alexandria, VA; Asheville, NC; Austin, TX; Bend, OR; Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Denver, CO; Detroit, MI; Grand Rapids, MI; Honolulu, HI; Lexington, KY; Oakland, CA; Palo Alto, CA; Portland, ME; Milwaukee, WI; New York City, NY; Philadelphia, PA; San Diego, CA; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; and Tucson, AZ.

Ready to get involved in YOUR community? You can learn more about the National Day of Civic Hacking at: http://www.hackforchange.org/.

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Entrepreneur

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New Tool to Protect Health Privacy on Mobile Devices at HHS

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 19:18:38 +0000

Chris Bernstein, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Health records are open to potential risks when health care providers and organizations use laptops, tablets, and smartphones to view or update patient records. However, research shows that only 44% of survey respondents and surveyed organizations encrypt the data on their mobile devices. And according to a recent study, less than half of the surveyed health care organizations discuss ways to protect mobile devices in privacy training.

Worried About Using a Mobile Device for
Work? Here's What to Do

To address the issue of data security in an increasingly mobile digital environment, HHS launched HealthIT.gov, which provides guidance and support to protect health information. Called “Your Mobile Device and Health Information Privacy and Security,” this site provides:

Resources such as videos, fact sheets, and downloadable posters to educate health care providers and organizations about protecting and securing health information against potential risks
Frequently asked questions that offer solutions to common issues, including how to respond when a mobile device is stolen and safeguarding health information while using public wifi
Actions health care providers and organizations can take to determine their mobile device security needs and develop and implement appropriate device policies and procedures

Through education and simple measures health care providers and organizations can greatly reduce the risk to health information.

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Mobile Strategy, Security Privacy

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Super Early Bird Registration for Health Datapalooza 2013 Now Open!

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:25:03 +0000

Chris Bernstein, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Registration for the Health Data Initiative Forum IV: Health Datapalooza is now open! Now, through December 21, 2012, take advantage of the super early bird registration. Next year’s event will be held June 3^rd and 4^th 2013.

Health Datapalooza IV is the fourth annual national conference born from government efforts to liberate health data and addresses the effective use of health data by companies, startups, academics, government agencies and individuals.

The two-day event includes:

Keynote presentations, newsmaker panels, breakout groups, training sessions, meet-ups, code-a-thons, and other interactive sessions focused on health data applications.
Rapid-fire announcements of business deals, data competitions, new academic programs and projects, cross-sector collaborations, and other opportunities for engagement.
An “Apps Expo” which allows attendees to explore innovative new tools and services, and interact directly with the developers and data experts who create the applications.

The hallmark of the event is a national competition that searches for the best and most innovative uses of health data in apps and products and that culminates in live demonstrations of the winning applications to Forum attendees.

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API, Entrepreneur, Security Privacy

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HHS CTO Bryan Sivak Talks Health Data on NPR

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 21:41:14 +0000

Chris Bernstein, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

HHS Chief Technology Officer Bryan Sivak was featured in yesterday's Kojo Nnamdi Show in an hour-long segment entitled, "Liberating (And Protecting) Health Data."

You can listen to the full segment in which Bryan was featured on the program’s website, transcript here .

Key quote: “In a lot of ways, we are trying to act as a catalyst or an enabler for this sort of sea change in health IT. There are any numbers of departments that work on various aspects of this, and it's everything from encouraging doctors to pick up health technology, to implement electronic medical record systems, all the way through to enabling patients to access their data in a machine-readable and seamless format.” – HHS CTO Bryan Sivak

Site Tags:

Mobile Apps, Security Privacy

Introducing assets.cms.gov

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 11:38:15 +0000

Jon Booth Director, Website & New Media Group, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Have you heard about assets.cms.gov? Probably not, but if you work on or use CMS' websites, it is a tool you use every day.

The Web & New Media Group (WNMG) started building assets.cms.gov about 10 months ago and completed the full launch of the site as part of the Medicare.gov redesign on August 21, 2012.

assets.cms.gov represents a shared code library for all of CMS' public websites. As websites (ours and everyone else's!) have grown in complexity over the past decade, they have come to be built on many common code and image libraries. These include the following file types:

Website headers & footers
Javascript libraries
CSS (stylesheet) files
Shared images
HTML snippets

Many of these files are developed by CMS and/or contractors, but there are also many common code libraries used across almost all commercial and Federal websites these days. Common libraries used by CMS include:

jQuery
Twitter Bootstrap
YUI (Yahoo! User Interface Library)

By placing all of these common code files onto assets.cms.gov, we can use the same code across all of CMS' websites. assets.cms.gov supports both a global directory of assets used across all websites as well as folders for site-specific code libraries (e.g., www.cms.gov, www.medicare.gov, etc.).

Some of the benefits of this approach include:

The ability to cache files across all of CMS' websites, resulting in better website performance
The ability to release new versions of code libraries across all websites at once
A common set of code built & tested to Section 508 compliance and cross-browser performance

I've mentioned how WNMG is using assets.cms.gov to support development of the public websites, but any CMS web-based project can be built against the assets.cms.gov framework. Using assets.cms.gov for your web project gains you all of the benefits above and also saves you development time by leveraging the work that has already been done.

assets.cms.gov Documentation & Downloads are available online. We are continuing to iterate and grow the amount of documentation online, so please check back frequently.

If you are interested in using assets.cms.gov for a web development project you are working on, please let us know in the comments. We are happy to address any questions you have or to provide additional information. Your feedback will help make this project better!

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API, Medicare

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Bring Your Own Data: Opportunities and Challenges in Using Citizen-Generated Data

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 16:35:14 +0000

Sara Harris, Fusion Cell, Office of the Asst. Secretary for Preparedness and Response, HHS

Have you ever reported traffic congestion or an accident to the local radio station or a smartphone app? Have you measured snow or rain fall for your local TV station? These are basic types of citizen-generated data.

Emergency health response agencies, including the HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), already uses citizen-generated data passively collected through social media channels like Twitter to track trending illnesses. At ASPR, we want to learn more about other applications of citizen-generated data and how this data can help us understand what is going on in a community following a disaster. Why are citizens participating in other projects? What is the quality of the data that is reported? What challenges or limitations exist when using citizen-generated data?

As we discussed this concept with colleagues at other agencies we quickly realized we weren’t the only ones interested in learning more. So, with our federal agency partners and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, we will be hosting a day-long forum Nov. 14, in the Washington, DC area entitled: “Bring Your Own Data: opportunities and challenges in using citizen-generated data for situational awareness.”

This event is open to anyone who may have an interest in citizen-generated data. Whether you’re a part of academia or the government, an environmentalist or epidemiologist, we’d love to see you there!

During the forum, we’ll hear about and discuss how citizens have contributed to studies, the value citizen-generated data has brought to projects, and the lessons learned through citizen involvement. At the end of the forum, we hope to have a better understanding of the challenges to using data provided by citizens, ideas for overcoming the challenges and limitations, and how this data can be used for situational awareness.

The event will include discussion and panel presentations on the following topics:

Transforming Research with Passive Citizen Data
Bring Your Own Data—Participatory Data Collection
Building Situational Awareness With Passive and Participatory Data
ASPR Challenge Competition Winner Announcement
What can we learn from citizens generating ecological data?
What can we learn from citizens sharing genomic and personal data?
How Federal Agencies and Federal Partners are Using Citizen-Generated Data

For more information and to participate in the forum, visit the registration page. If you have any questions about the forum please feel free to contact fusion.info@hhs.gov.

What kinds of citizen-gathered information is available and how would you suggest using it?

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API, Entrepreneur, Public Engagement

Using Videos on Facebook to Encourage Dialogue

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 15:42:45 +0000

Kathryn Harben and Lauren Elsberry, both of the Million Hearts™

Million Hearts™ recently launched a new educational program—Team Up. Pressure Down —to help pharmacists engage consumers in a conversation about blood pressure control. Animated videos and custom Facebook tabs provide a targeted method for reaching audiences with useful educational tools.

According to a recent Vital Signs report from the CDC, more than half of Americans with hypertension (also known as high blood pressure) don’t have their blood pressure under control. Millions more Americans aren’t even aware that they have the condition. Controlling high blood pressure is a key component of the Million Hearts™ initiative. Team Up. Pressure Down. offers support for pharmacists and other health care professionals to help patients more effectively manage their blood pressure.

Blood Pressure Basics Animated Video

A key component of the program’s outreach strategy is the use of animated videos embedded on the website and the tabs of the Million Hearts Facebook page to explain what blood pressure is, how treatments work in the body, and why viewers should care. In the past few years, online video consumption has risen dramatically and videos are a popular content type for sharing with friends.

The three short animated films created for Team Up. Pressure Down. invite viewers into a quirky neighborhood (featuring a pill-bottle shaped pharmacy) and introduce them to engaging characters (including Franny, the family dog). This one-of-a-kind video series--created using 2D and 3D animation--adds a fresh perspective to a very serious topic, and explains the role that pharmacists can play in helping people manage their high blood pressure.

Customizing Facebook Tabs to Promote Health Resources

Team Up. Pressure Down. resources are available in custom tabs on the Million Hearts™ Facebook page (and at millionhearts.hhs.gov). Million Hearts™ made the decision to post the videos and other resources on Facebook because of the great success to date with reaching and interacting with people interested in heart health. Targeted Facebook advertising has helped the initiative acquire 52,000 fans who match the ages and ethnicities of people at greatest risk for heart attack and stroke.

With higher-than-average engagement rates and a large existing fan-base, the strategic decision to house Team Up. Pressure Down. materials on Facebook was almost a no-brainer. The custom tabs are designed to provide easy-to-understand information to the people who need it, where they already are. The tabs prompt users to “Share” and “Like” resources, extending the reach of the program by capitalizing on users’ social connections.

With the added benefit of attracting more pharmacists to the Facebook page through the Team Up. Pressure Down. campaign, pharmacists and patients can participate in the conversation online. The Million Hearts^TM Facebook page now brings patients and pharmacists to the same space to comment on postings and begin a dialogue to help patients understand the value of teaming up with their pharmacist offline too.

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Glad You Asked: Open Data Questions

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 16:57:08 +0000

Richard Stapleton, Deputy Director, Web Communications and New Media Division

So we are liberating our data. So what? Tell me why this is good, one person writes. Tell me this is not bad, writes another.

Comment:

This is good news for techies but would love for you to expand on how this benefits the average Joe (because no doubt it does!). 'Liberating data' is good pr but explaining how it can and will change lives by getting more people (public and NOW private sector) individuals using accurate data/ content sets to produce products to make our lives better, safer, and more healthy seems like a more important message. Maybe less catchy but more clear, I think anyway

Response:

We just happen to have a perfect example. U.S. News & World Report today (10/3) unveiled a web-based tool to help consumers find the best health insurance plans for their specific needs. Their Best Health Insurance Plans rates plans based on coverage and costs (both monthly and out-of-pocket), and makes it easy for users to find top-rated plans available to them based on where they live. The U.S. News tool pulls its information using the HHS HealthCare Finder API. It’s a textbook example of what the private sector can do with “liberated” government data. Read more about Open Data at HHS.

Comment:

What other information do these 'warehouses' hold? Does HHS have my personal data? Creepy.

Response:

The ‘warehouses’ hold lots of data about people but none of it is personal, in the sense that someone could plug your name in and find information about you. The law closely protects what’s called “personally identifiable information.” So while people can look up the number of heart attacks in a year and can break that number down by age and gender and even locality, they cannot look up whether or not you personally have suffered an illness. Your privacy is protected.

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Glad You Asked

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Opening Up Our Data

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Bryan Sivak, Chief Technology Officer, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Earlier this summer, the U.S. Chief Information Officer, Steven VanRoekel released the federal government’s new digital strategy which aims to shift the way government information is accessed and consumed. Instead of focusing on producing a final product, which has been common practice for years, the government will now be making content more accurate, available and secure. One major tool in the information technology tool box being used to achieve this goal is the use of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

An API is a set of tools for building software applications. But more importantly, an API makes information more accessible. This is important for two reasons.

First, the use of APIs makes it easier to replicate government information across more places than ever before. APIs enable automatic updates of information when content is syndicated on other websites, while reducing actual person hours currently spent manually updating content.

Second, APIs make information and data easily available to developers, who can create Web and mobile applications that make information increasingly more useful to the public. We have already seen the benefits of liberating vast amounts of data through the Department of Health and Human Service’s Open Government Health Data Initiative, hundreds of applications like My Cancer Genome, HealthGrades, Archimedes’ IndiGO, and the Healthy Communities Network which have been developed for individuals, communities and service providers. HHS has been liberating vast amounts of its data, many of which have APIs and are on HealthData.gov.

As the government changes the way it does business—making content and Web APIs the new default—government information and data will be more open, accessible and useful for the public. This strategy will open doors for communication and give everyone the opportunity to use government information in a more meaningful way.

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