I will be attending the HIMSS conference again this year and look forward to a great week exploring new opportunities in health information technology.
There was an excellent panel discussion Sunday at HIMSS that looked at innovation in health care with Aneesh Chopra, CTO of the United States, Peter Levin, CTO at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and Farzad Mostashari, Deputy National Coordinator at the ONC. They discussed a three-pronged approach to health care innovation:
- Invest in the building blocks of innovation, such as R&D and human capital
- Set the right policy conditions to foster market-based innovations
- Foster an all-hands-on-deck approach to R&D and standards
There was a great deal of focus on the government in its role as a convener and collaborator and using government as a platform for innovation. Using the examples of the Direct Project and the Blue Button initiative as templates for how government can solve not only problems we face in health care in this country, but other sectors such as energy and education as well.
I spoke with Chopra after the panel. He touched on general topics ranging from the Direct Project, to open government, to ways government can act as a platform for innovation. He also discussed:
- The work of the the Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Project at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
- How we can use the open and transparent process that led to the Direct Project as a template for other efforts to solve our country’s problems.
The full interview is available in the following video:
Thanks to Open Affairs Television for providing the video for this conversation. They will also be posting video from the entire panel discussion on their site.
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