HealthContentAdvisors

Open Data Will Be All the Rage in 2010

• Posted December 22nd 2009
• by Janice

Despite a dismal year for the media industry, there is one major trend we can all look forward to in 2010: Open Data.

Open data is more than a trend; it represents a shift in worldview about using research, business intelligence, and outcomes data. Tim Berners-Lee’s talk at TED in early 2009 promoted the power of raw data and described why we need to improve interoperability because “data are relationships” and analysis across larger collections of data help make “the world run better”.

At InfoCommerce Group we’ve always understood the importance of data and data management. Our roots go back to pre-Web 1.0 days when large print directories and buyers guides like the Thomas Register were being digitized. We’ve always understood that all digital content can be viewed as data whose value is increased when organized, categorized, sorted, modeled, analyzed, integrated, archived, updated–and shared.

In the healthcare industry, where I focus most of my attention, the possibilities for making the world run better by exploiting research, outcomes, and administrative data are enormous. Yet, the healthcare sector lags other industries by more than a decade in data management, data access and interoperability. (See: HISTalk interview with John Gomez, EVP/CTO Eclipsys, for frank talk on this issue.)

Support from HITECH funding surely will accelerate development of systems that enable data exchange and analysis in the healthcare industry. There are a lot of perceptions, attitudes and organizational changes that needs to occur, too; but there is no excuse for healthcare to continue to lag so far behind other industries in employing technology to improve performance.

Note, I just discovered a post by Jonathan Rosenberg, SVP, Product Management at Google, titled, “The Meaning of Open”. It’s a long post and I haven’t digested it yet, but will leave you with an outtake from the post [emphasis mine]:

“Open will win. It will win on the Internet and will then cascade across many walks of life: The future of government is transparency. The future of commerce is information symmetry. The future of culture is freedom. The future of science and medicine is collaboration. The future of entertainment is participation. Each of these futures depends on an open Internet.”

The impact of open data will reverberate throughout the publishing industry and is certain to be felt very strongly in the scholarly publishing sector, which currently dominates the distribution of medical research information.  While it doesn’t spell disaster for this sector, it will impact traditional business models and relationships between researchers and publishers in a big way.

Happy holidays to everyone and best wishes for a brighter 2010!