Todd Park, CTO of Health and Human Services, On Improving Healthcare with Open Data

Todd Park, CTO of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), joined an enthusiastic audience at SXSW to talk about the power of open data and innovation to improve health. His role is not to run technology for HHS, but he serves an an entrepreneur in resident to start "virtual startups" within HHS to improve the health of Americans. HHS wants to create an environment that helps markets and the public transform healthcare. As part of the Recovery Act, HHS is implementing Medicare/Medicaid incentive payments to physicians and hospitals for meaningful use of electronic health records. To get the money, you can't just use EHRs. You have to use them to actually improve care.