Folks Have Posted Terrific Open Government Thoughts
By Todd Park
Folks have posted terrific Open Government thoughts and ideas over the past few weeks – incredibly thoughtful and inspiring stuff! Initial observations regarding the latest round of comments:
- We are getting suggestions to not just release raw data sets, but also to focus on how to make data maximally helpful to citizens. This makes enormous sense to me. Shrgp in California asks that government information be “collected and presented in a way that citizens can easily absorb.” “I do not mean dumbed-down,” says Shrgp. “Maps and grids are lean, and information dense.” Megan in Silicon Valley recommends engaging in outreach efforts to web developers to encourage them to make applications using our raw data that will be useful to citizens. These efforts could include application development contests and other mechanisms.
- Folks are also offering increasingly rich advice about what kinds of data would be most useful to release – ranging from Nancy Watzman’s comments about the value of providing food, drug, and medical device recall data (among other FDA data) to comments from multiple folks (Samantha Collier, Amy Romano, and others) on how HHS data could help provide additional insight into health care delivery patterns across the country. This kind of input will be very helpful to us on an ongoing basis as we brainstorm future data releases.
- I love Megan of Silicon Valley’s observation that “the same transparent and open process that you are using to collect ideas from the public can be used equally effectively in-house.” Megan, I think you are absolutely right. We need to leverage Open Government approaches not just to harness the ideas of the public, but also to unleash the full power of our HHS workforce, which is positively brimming with ideas on how we can better deliver on our mission.
- An anonymous contributor comments that videos and webcasts on what is going on in different programs across HHS would be very helpful – I think that this is a wonderful idea.
- Also quite notable are comments from folks like Gary Ward of Burlington, who strongly supports NIH’s approach to ensuring public access to biomedical literature and suggests extending this framework to other agencies, and Timothy Donaghy of the Union of Concerned Scientists, who writes eloquently about the importance of allowing scientists and experts to speak freely with the public.
Your comments are helping to shape both our initial Open Government Plan (coming soon) and our ongoing thinking about Open Government. We see our initial Plan as just the beginning of what will be a continuous journey toward ever more substantive transparency, participation, and collaboration at HHS. In that spirit, we are going to be soliciting additional public input on our Plan once it’s posted and continuing to gather ideas from the public on an ongoing basis after that. We will be updating our Plan on a regular basis and keeping you posted on our Open Government activity in general through this blog and Web site.
Thanks so very much again to all for your contributions and very much looking forward to the next steps in our Open Government journey together!
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Let me preface my comment by commending the implimentation of the Open Gov program. The HHS and CMS have been collecting billing data for the medicare and medicaide programs for decades, it is now time to apply that data in a manner that will enhance and expand the goods and services offered by these much needed programs while similteanously lowering the cost of the programs susequently reducing health care costs in the private sector. It is widely recoginised and accepted that there is a high percentage of fraud and abuse. After my own extensive study of the data and statistics provided by both official agency sites it is abundently clear the complexity of the billing and funding ie. reimbusement schedules that create the enviorment for fraud and abuse. These programs and private sector healhtcare costs will not be contained until this issue is addressed! Product and service providers who accept medicare medicaide are padding their submission for reimbursement in an effort to get compensated to full value of service some for greed the majority for survival of there practice. This is defined as fraud and the cost of policing it is higher than the recovery of funds. Abuse is even hard to police, for example I have a nieghbor who has squandered his earnings and susequently his family is on medicaide. He has often expressed the value of the schip program as his two boys engage in knife fights with plastic cutlery and have had to have stitches, thank god for schip.In the year I have been nieghbors with this family I have had them over for diner and invite them to swim in my pool and allow them to run an extension cord from my house to thier fridge when the have neglected to pay thier electric bill.I use the term neglected because they managed to find $1,200.00 to purchase a pedigre dog and $4,700.00 for a home entertainment system.I am not the type of person to judge and tell people how to live thier lives, and I do not blame them for the abuse they lack the intelligence or motivation to do any better. I blame the system and those who have created it and posess the knowledge and power to change and do not! I will get to the solution as I am not the type to complian unless I believe I know of a better way. The HHS must take all the inflated billing data we posess and calqulate the amount and type of medical products and service we need to address the needs of the program enrollees. Peoples intentions must align if we are to progress in a construcdtive manner. for the most part doctors want to be doctors, this is why there is a trend for physicians of all expertise are closing thier private practices to join a larger practice run by an administrator for an hourly fee or yearly salary.These physicians and care givers are prime canidates to become lumpsum yearly government contracted caregivers. A few example of how moving in this direction will eliminate fraud and abuse are; As a condition of the contract structure between the government and product, sevice contractor, facility or business would be staffed with a HHS or CMS employees for the purpose of data collection and processing. The data we collect will prove to be more accurate as in the past the physicians billing method was based on what procedures are feasible for reimbursement and not what services were actualy rendered. The Intention of all parties to the transaction suddley align, the doctor can provide the care the patient needs without concern of being reimbursed,the program would now control the accuracy of the data being collected and the program will provide care to more enrollees as the physician will spend eight hours a day providing care as opposed to foour to six hours with two to four hours overseeing staff and activities there off. Upon reading the 175 page CMS CFO 2009 report it is evident we need to focus on the way the funds are being utilised rather than the programs net position. There is a saying "you can make any problem disappear if you throw enough money at it" but if throwing money is the problem then throwing more money is not the answer.Fixing Medicare Medicaid is parimount to our countries economic recovery. Our current approach will only push us further away from the fix. the litmus test for any change with in our government policies and agencies should be will the change reduce the tax burden on the general public so as to provide greater discretionary income for consumers to drive commerce wich will inturn create jobs and increase th GDP wich will inturn result in greater tax revenues that will fund the enhancements of any and all government programs and agencies.
We are excited to read about HHS’s open government plans although we are disappointed that concrete policies to allow “scientists and experts to speak freely with the public” were not a part of the plan. Allowing HHS experts to speak freely is a crucial component creating a more open agency culture and giving the public full access to the wealth of resources provided by the agency. Transparency is more than just datasets. (For more information see http://www.ucsusa.org/mediapolicies.) We definitely support plans to continue the conversation. Going forward, it would be valuable for HHS to provide feedback on the submitted recommendations. For example, it would be useful to know which citizen suggestions are still under active consideration for future iterations of the Open Government Plan, and which are not being considered and why. While it seems likely that not all citizen suggestions can be implemented immediately with current resources, if HHS expects the public to continue to participate in this process, it must explain why certain ideas were implemented and why others were disregarded. Timothy Donaghy Scientific Integrity Analyst Union of Concerned Scientists