Health 2.0 fuels the Accelerator
With an important seed contribution from the Health 2.0 Conference, the Health 2.0 Accelerator (H2A) is off and running (www.Health2Accelerator.org), creating opportunities to accelerate progress among its members and the Health 2.0 community!
Why Now? Why H2A?
We think the space is approaching a critical stage in its evolution
where an increasing number of consumers will seek comprehensive
solutions, not fragmented tools and services.
Companies of all shapes and
sizes are going to need ways to expand their offerings to users rapidly
and cost effectively while evolving their business models. At the same
time, traditional health care payors, providers and
purchasers/employers are trying to determine how to engage with
companies that offer patients new and sometimes entirely independent
capabilities for generating, analyzing and consuming health
information. H2A is providing a platform to collaboratively address
these needs by cultivating projects and initiatives that leverage
existing standards to pursue interoperability among members and
partners, as well as working with traditional health care organizations
to design pilots that help assess the value of Health 2.0 innovations
when integrated with traditional delivery environments and
provider-centric technologies.
How Can Companies and Organizations Get Involved with H2A?
H2A provides members with varying types of opportunities/services
based on their role as a Participant, Contributor or Sponsor. Everyone
who joined the Accelerator wiki is considered an H2A Participant, which
allows them to attend member convenings and learn from the results of
projects and pilots, as well as contribute ideas about projects or
important policy issues. In addition, all members will be able to
participate in the Health 2.0 Ontology, an initiative that will profile
Health 2.0 offerings in order to improve awareness and understanding of
the value that companies can deliver individually and in partnership
with others. The Ontology will become a living tool and over time will
help to reduce the time, cost and overall complexity of identifying
beneficial partners or solutions for a specific purpose or need.
For Contributors and Sponsors, H2A is facilitating targeted
collaboration, including matchmaking, and offering the ability to
promote tools/services to other members. Contributors and Sponsors can
participate in selective H2A initiatives and have the opportunity to
participate in pilots with traditional healthcare stakeholders.
Catholic Healthcare West and Sage Software have joined H2A as initial
Sponsors and both are currently working with H2A to design pilots this
year.
Another development for H2A is the vision for pushing forward
standards-focused, patient-centric information exchange initiatives
with the goal of leveraging standards to facilitate affordable and
efficient exchange of health information and inter-operation of
services among Health 2.0 technology companies and traditional health
care stakeholders. H2A is sticking to its position of not becoming
another standards organization or “choosing” one standard over others.
However, based on significant member interest and with key help from
David Kibbe and others, H2A is initially pursuing a Continuity of Care
Record (CCR) Exchange initiative that builds on the momentum of H2A
members already using CCR and those that have clear interest in doing
so. Budding member interest in a similar focus around CCD is also
indicating that there may be a valuable role for H2A to play in helping
its members think about how they can work with partners who use either
patient-centric standard.
Where is H2A Headed in 2009?
As with any “start-up,” 2009 will be a time of transition for H2A in
its first year as a formal organization. We are thrilled to include a
growing list of companies and organizations as Sponsors and
Contributors, including Catholic Healthcare West, Sage Software,
BluePond, TheCarrot.com, change:healthcare, DestinationRx,
DoubleCheckMD, HealthSaaS.net, HealthWorldWeb, Kinnexxus, Limeade,
MedCommons, Medical Knowledge Discovery Project, Medic8 Manager,
MedSimple, Olive Technology, PharmaSURVEYOR, Polka, PrivateAccess and
VitalSpring Technologies.
At the upcoming Health 2.0 meets Ix conference in Boston, H2A
will be sharing an update on its progress, including launching the
Ontology initiative and highlighting collaborative activities among the
membership. H2A is hosting a pre-conference meeting on the morning of
April 22 before the conference gets underway which will include a
presentation from a representative of AHRQ to help Health 2.0 companies
understand what opportunities the ARRA might present, as well as
discussions about budding efforts from our members focused on
crowdsourcing provider reviews and web services for lookup of drug
identifier codes and namespaces.
How Should You Get Involved?
Everyone who hasn’t already should join H2A and start participating!
- Large technology and health care organizations, stakeholder groups,
foundations and government agencies can work with H2A as an
Industry/Program Partner or Sponsoring Members to address broader
strategies/frameworks or design specific pilots with Health 2.0
companies; - Health 2.0 companies and traditional health care stakeholders that
are interested in collaborating on projects, pilots or initiatives
should contact H2A to discuss opportunities to get involved as a
Contributor or Participant; and - Original wiki members should visit the H2A website and contact H2A to learn more about new opportunities for getting involved.
For more information about H2A, including a schedule of upcoming
meetings or to RSVP for the pre-conference meeting in Boston, visit www.Health2Accelerator.org
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