This is the third in a series of stories about innovation at the National Weather Service.
A new version of the well-known weather Doppler radar technology now gives meteorologists the ability to see storms from additional angles and provide a more accurate forecast. Keep reading →
Want to know where the President of the United States was on a given Thursday afternoon? And what he said?
It’s now possible. Keep reading →
From background checks on truck drivers to renewing hunting licenses in Mississippi, eGovernment portals are taking consumers directly to government services through a “self-pay” fee system without either state or federal appropriations or expenditures.
For example, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has instituted a background check system that bypasses bureaucracy and delivers information directly to trucking companies. Keep reading →
What began as a simple way to help veterans view their personal health information over the Internet is continuing to snowball into an electronic health record phenomena known as the Blue Button, now used by more than a million patients nationally and gaining wider adoption by certain health care providers.
The Blue Button is a simple piece of software code that the Department of Veteran Affairs developed two years ago, that lets veterans obtain a copy of their medical information electronically.
VA and health industry officials are now exploring ways to expand its adoption, as well as the types of information patients can access.
At a recently concluded consumer health IT summit, Peter Levin, chief technology officer for the VA described how the Blue Button got started and the impact it has had since in serving veterans.
But he and Dr. Farzad Mostashari, who leads the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, also highlighted their vision to grow Blue Button’s user base from “from one million to 10 million to 100 million to the entire country.”
“We want to turn the Blue Button from a noun, to a verb,” said Levin, to a “thing that you do…when you see the Blue Button, you know…you’re going to get your health information.”
Mostashari said he expects immunization records to be accessible via Blue Button in the coming weeks.
But he and Levin said they hope to avoid having distinct types of records added individually.
“You don’t want to do this one at a time,” said Levin. “You’d like to have a methodical way, of not just (adding information) inside government, but most important of all, is doing it outside of government.”Looking ahead, Mostashari said that it is also important to ensure two things happen:
“First, making the information more usable. But not only making sure that its always human readable, for the patient and the family to have immediate access to the information, but also making it machine readable so developers can develop new tools and services.”
U.S. Treasury Department officials doled out $25,000 in cash prizes and announced the winners of the department’s MyMoneyAppUp challenge contest.
The winners were selected from among eight finalists in a final judging session taking place at the Treasury Department and available for viewing live via webcast at 9:00 A.M. EDT Friday. Keep reading →
Ryan Panchadsaram was selected as a Presidential Innovation Fellow for the Blue Button program as part of the new White House Presidential Innovation Fellows program. The program pairs top innovators from the private sector, nonprofits, and academia with top innovators in government to collaborate on solutions that aim to deliver significant results in six months.
The Blue Button program is aimed at providing easy access to health records by enabling individuals to securely download their own health information via a simple text file, such as current medications and drug allergies, claims and treatment data, and lab reports. The Department of Veterans Affairs – working with the Department of Health & Human Services, the Department of Defense, and others – are collaborating on the project.
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This is one in a series introducing 18 Fellows working on five initiatives that are part of the White House Presidential Innovation Fellows program.
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Panchadsaram was most recently the head of Customer & Product at Ginger.io, a spin-off from MIT Media Lab, using big data to transform health. Keep reading →
“The liberation of government datasets is important in itself, but data are truly powerful when used in the development of informative apps.” So proclaimed Todd Park, Brian Forde and Jo Strang in a recent White House Blog, Safety Data Jam connects Tech Innovators with Public Safety Officers.
That safety jam was part of a broader initiative to challenge developers featuring new Data.gov Safety “data sets” that gained fresh exposure this month at the White House’s Safety Datapalooza.
I took a deeper look to see what innovation with government data is possible.
Keep reading →
Matt McCall was selected as a Presidential Innovation Fellow for the Blue Button program as part of the new White House Presidential Innovation Fellows program. The program pairs top innovators from the private sector, nonprofits, and academia with top innovators in government to collaborate on solutions that aim to deliver significant results in six months.
The Blue Button program is aimed at providing easy access to health records by enabling individuals to securely download their own health information via a simple text file, such as current medications and drug allergies, claims and treatment data, and lab reports. The Department of Veterans Affairs – working with the Department of Health & Human Services, the Department of Defense, and others – are collaborating on the project.
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This is one in a series introducing 18 Fellows working on five initiatives that are part of the White House Presidential Innovation Fellows program.
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McCall believes that open standards, data, and software have the potential to redefine the way in which patient-centered healthcare is delivered in this country, and that Blue Button is a critical step towards realizing the potential of this transformative concept. Keep reading →
Henry Wei was selected as a Presidential Innovation Fellow for the Blue Button program as part of the new White House Presidential Innovation Fellows program. The program pairs top innovators from the private sector, nonprofits, and academia with top innovators in government to collaborate on solutions that aim to deliver significant results in six months.
The Blue Button program is aimed at providing easy access to health records by enabling individuals to securely download their own health information via a simple text file, such as current medications and drug allergies, claims and treatment data, and lab reports. The Department of Veterans Affairs – working with the Department of Health & Human Services, the Department of Defense, and others – are collaborating on the project.
_______________________________________________
This is one in a series introducing 18 Fellows working on five initiatives that are part of the White House Presidential Innovation Fellows program.
_______________________________________________ Keep reading →
When the White House announced which of more than 700 applicants would become Presidential Innovation Fellows last month, it also gave a subtle endorsement to a concept pioneered by a small, but growing nonprofit organization called Code for America.
Founded by Jennifer Pahlka in 2009, Code for America has been helping to bring experts and entrepreneurs from the private sector to work together with public sector leaders and inject a dose of innovative ideas into government services. Keep reading →