Healthcare is complex, intertwined, and touches every single individual on this planet. The average per capita spent on healthcare costs has been tremendously increasing over the past few years. Governments seem to focus on increasing premiums, changing tax rates and augmenting efficiency gains. A great article by Clay Christensen briefly illustrates that the focus for dormant capital has shifted to efficiency gains instead of innovation. And as we all know… innovation is what this world needs. During last week’s Health 2.0 conference in Berlin, Tim Kelsey -Patients and Information Director at the NHS- stressed the importance of open data. Tim wears many hats, including a role as a CIO, CTO and pseudo-CMO. No matter what the title states, his speech was inspiring and while he made some bold statements about giving all patients in UK their own health record by 2015, the one thing that resonated was his passion and dedication to open health data. As he puts it: “open data will unleash the power of people and save the NHS from a crisis”. There are numerous reforms being pushed across the world. Whether a country has completely socialized healthcare system, a completely privatized system or anything in between, the […]
