Transforming Healthcare with the help of open government

Healthcare costs are out of control in the United States.  Open Government initiatives could go a long way towards reducing costs by providing tools to securely transfer relevant information to all points within the system as well as by working closely with citizens to identify areas of improvement.

As one example, the state of New York just launched a website to redesign Medicaid and is looking for citizen feedback to enhance, to inform, this effort.  Governor Cuomo stated the problem clearly, noting, “New York’s bloated Medicaid program, which spends at a rate more than twice the national average, must be reformed to help our state begin to make ends meet,” he said. “This new team has been tasked with finding ways to save Medicaid money which will finally give taxpayers a needed break”.

The Electronic Exchange of Healthcare Information is another area that holds tremendous promise in terms of cost reduction and quality of service improvements.  This video, nearly 2 hours in length, provides an update of the progress in this area.