As we set forth on the Health Data Exploration project, we're being guided by a wonderful set of advisors. Here's a quick video post from one of them, Larry Smarr, the director of Calit2.  Larry's a pioneer who's exploring the frontiers of quantified self, as you can see from the extraordinary talk he gave at TEDMED earlier this year.

Think about it for a moment. When you consider what you "know" about health, where does that knowledge come from? While we all have our sources—doctors, friends, news articles—our knowledge at its core is derived from research. And that research is built on a foundation of data.

Data about health typically come from several types of sources: clinical data, gleaned from electronic health records or chart pulls, and billing and claims data, which are byproducts of the health care process; and public health surveillance data, which are specialized collections about particular topics or populations. All of these sources can then be supplemented, at a considerable cost, by original data collection efforts specific to a particular study.

These different types of data are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle; when assembled, they create a more complete picture of health.

But a piece of the puzzle is missing.  Or it has been up till now.

In a post this week on the Kevin MD blog, Jon Darer, chief innovation officer for the Division of Clinical Innovation at Geisinger Health System, discussed Geisinger's decision to roll out OpenNotes to most of its physicians and patients.

Geisinger's approach highlights the choices that will be facing many health systems: The results of the OpenNotes study, published last fall, provide compelling evidence to go forward in general, but there is a need to be careful and thoughtful about how to do so. Different specialties and different patient populations have special circumstances that need careful consideration. And each institution has its own culture to be navigated. As more early adopters like Geisinger move forward, we'll learn more about how best to implement this practice and through that learning, make it more widely available. — Steve Downs

New York State Commissioner of Health Nirav Shah is the Billy Beane of health care.

Let me explain. 

Billy Beane—the general manager and minority owner of the Oakland Athletics—and made famous in the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis, was made even more famous when Brad Pitt portrayed him in the movie adaptation. (Generally speaking, having Brad Pitt portray you is a good way to get famous.)

For those who aren’t familiar, Moneyball is about how, under Beane’s unconventional leadership, “the Oakland Athletics achieved an amazing winning streak while having the smallest player payroll in Major League Baseball. (Short answer: creative use of data.)” (Thank you, New York Times.)

“Today, Geisinger Health System, one of the nation’s premier health systems, is taking an important step to expand OpenNotes. We hope other systems follow Geisinger’s lead to share doctors’ notes with patients, giving them information they can use to participate more meaningfully in their care." – Steve Downs

This excerpted post by Geisinger CEO Glenn Steele, MD, first appeared in October 2012, when results from the OpenNotes pilot were released. Geisinger was one of three health systems that participated in the study.

…As a health system CEO who also is a doctor, I believe it is an ethical imperative that our patients at Geisinger know everything that we know about them. And, I think it’s a logical imperative that if we can open up our medical visit notes to our patients, we’ll find out what they understand and what they don’t, so we can answer questions and work as partners to chart a path to better health.