12/24/2013 - A new era in open data is arriving at the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA is unrolling a brand new, open data website to give people an inside look at the agency."VA Open Data is all non-sensitive, non-personal information, things like lists of VA locations and lists of VA benefits, so that we can allow the public and particularly developers to integrate this information into the apps and into the services they're providing," Marina Martin, VA's chief technology officer, told In Depth with Francis Rose Monday.
VA's website is the latest part of the goverment's overall Open Data Initiative, which the administration launched on President Barack Obama's first day in office. The White House bolstered the open data effort in May by mandating that agencies make data accessible and open online.
Listen to discussion about "People want to build apps and services for veterans or perhaps the general public but with specific services for veterans," Martin said. "What they have to do each time is they end up reinventing the wheel. They end up trying to track down lists of VA hospitals or lists of homeless resources and they start those databases from scratch each time."
Martin hopes that through its new website, the VA will be able to provide the information the public and developers want in one authoritative source. read more>>>
How VA Is Using Big Data to Keep Patients Out of the Hospital December 23, 2013 - The Partnership for Public Service and IBM Center for The Business of Government recently issued “From Data to Decisions III: Lessons from Early Analytics Programs,” which examines successful early government users of data to see how they got started, what sustained them and how the data was used to improve mission-critical programs.The report identifies lessons learned to help federal leaders and managers avoid pitfalls, instill analytics faster and move more efficiently and effectively to create data-driven cultures.
The following case study, the second in a series of three excerpted from the report, examines how the Veterans Affairs Department uses data to minimize hospitalizations.
How VA Uses Data to Refine Patient Care
Outpatient care and services can keep patients out of the hospital and can keep them happier, healthier and alive longer, but doctors at the Veterans Health Administration did not always have the information they needed to make the most informed judgments.
Stephan Fihn, a primary care physician and head of VHA’s Office of Analytics and Business Intelligence, has begun to change this dynamic. read more>>>
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