The Board of Directors and leadership of the Health Data Consortium (HDC) (@hdconsortium) announced that the organization has ceased operations and transitioned leadership of the 2016 Health Datapalooza to AcademyHealth, a longtime member of the health data community and the professional organization representing the producers and users of health services research.
“Since its inception, HDC has played a key role in making health data part of a common national agenda and pursing its mission to accelerate the availability and use of health data to drive innovations that improve health and health care,” said outgoing CEO Chris Boone. “The value of health data is now broadly recognized by government, academic and industry entities that are now turning their attention to how to best make use of health data. We’ve succeeded in creating a movement that stretches beyond the Consortium and its original public and private partners.”
As the pace of change has accelerated, much of the discussion and engagement around ‘big data’ in health is shifting to the community of public and private stakeholders that includes health system leaders, innovators, researchers and consumers who can leverage new resources to use data for actionable improvements in health and health care.
“Recognizing our successes and the evolution of the health data movement in these new directions, we’ve decided to transition leadership of the DataPalooza to another organization with the expertise necessary deliver the quality event our community expects while increasing its focus on practical applications and the needs of the user community,” said HDC Board Chair James Bradley. “Health DataPalooza will therefore continue under the auspices of AcademyHealth, a founding member of the HDC community and a leader in advancing the use of data and evidence to improve health and health care.”
Among other things, AcademyHealth is the home of the EDM Forum and the host of the Concordium conference – two groundbreaking programs that are defining how organizations learn from emerging data streams while also creating networks of data producers and users who can apply those lessons to quality improvements in health care delivery systems.
“This is an exciting opportunity for the Health Datapalooza to move in new directions, engage new audiences and push the boundaries of what’s possible to discover what’s doable,” said AcademyHealth President and CEO, Dr. Lisa Simpson. “We look forward to working with the planning committee, partners, presenters and sponsors to deliver a robust and exciting event focused not on the ‘what ifs’ of change, but on the when, who, and how.”
In its tenure as the home of the Datapalooza and as hub of activity in the data liberation movement, the Health Data Consortium succeeded in creating momentum and connections that stretch beyond the Consortium and its original public and private partners. Examples like the Precision Medicine Initiative and PCORnet, for example, illustrate pioneering usage of data to improve healthcare – uses that would not be possible without the streams of data now available to data analysts, health care providers, researchers and patients.
“We are proud of what we have been able to accomplish in a short time, and of the extraordinary community that has coalesced around the Datapalooza,” said Boone. “It has been a privilege and an honor to work with each of our members and partners and we look forward to witnessing your continued contributions to the Health Datapalooza and to the shared mission of realizing real improvements through data.”