Sebelius, Park Should Show More Proof Of Health Datapalooza Claims

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and US Chief Technology Officer Todd Park co-authored a White House blog this week about the high-points of the recent Health Datapalooza, touting a number of accomplishments. And certainly, they deserve credit for trying to unleash the forces of innovation on a bureaucracy as big as HHS.

However, looking more deeply into some of the high points mentioned in the blog, one discovers not everything is as self-evident or available to data users as it might appear...

...I was very surprised that one thing Sebelius and Park did not mention in their blog, which I thought was the highlight of the conference, and is perhaps one of the most promising for achieving their lofty goals, is a mashup of genetic, health record, and health research data to produce better individualized treatments and costs savings...