The monikers ‘Health Data Initiative’ and ‘meaningful use’ are not commonly seen together, but there is an intersection where they meet. And on that corner is Todd Park, CTO of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Park spoke with Government Health IT Senior Editor Mary Mosquera and Editor Tom Sullivan at the Government Health IT Conference in Washington this month about how those pieces fit together into a more coherent whole, forthcoming changes to the Blue Button application, and what’s next for the Health Data Initiative – both the contest itself and the recent winners.

Q: How does HHS’ Health Data Initiative support the meaningful use of EHRs?
A: The Health Data Initiative is distinct from the Electronic Health Record meaningful use program, but they are connected through payment reform and delivery innovation under the Affordable Care Act. The Health Data Initiative is focusing on the release of non-personal data and useful information that HHS has accumulated over the years, like hospital quality data; clinical trials; community health performance data, including smoking rates and hospital readmission rates; MedlinePlus Connect data for the latest medical and health knowledge for patients and providers.

Among the meaningful use requirements is to service health education materials to patients, and MedlinePlus Connect is a way for EHRs to meet that criterion by taking customized packages of patient education materials from MedlinePlus Connect library and beaming it into the workflow of the electronic health and personal health record.

There are going to be a lot of intersections, but there are also interlinked initiatives. Blue Button sits somewhere in between. Blue Button is a very simple campaign where CMS, VA and DOD have allowed Medicare beneficiaries, veterans and members of the military to go to the existing MyMedicare.gov portal, MyHealtheVet and DOD patient portal, where they can already see their own claims and personal health information and download a copy. We’re starting to see that emulated in the private sector, and to bring it full circle, helping meet meaningful use requirements to provide patients a copy of their information. It’s all interconnected. Then, both the Health Data Initiative and the electronic health record program help support care delivery innovation and payment reform and are transformed by payment reform because it creates a business case to invest in and focus on improvement in quality and health, which the EHRs, health information exchange and the Health Data Initiative can support.

Q: Will we see some of those innovations in accountable care organizations?
A: Yes, for example, accountable-care enablement services, like data-powered nurse management services, were shown by Aetna and Essence Health and others at our recent Health Data Initiative forum. These are meant to help accountable care organizations and medical homes take better care of their patients and do a better job of proactive care of their patient populations and therefore do well as medical homes and more accountable delivery systems of any kind.

Q: As the Blue Button application been available since last fall and private sector groups are using it, are you planning to make any updates?
A: All three partner organizations – CMS, VA and DOD – have been engaged in upgrades on data files. VA has added more data to it, extracting data from the VistA electronic health record; DOD has put up a Blue Button on its patient portal, which extracts data from the military electronic health record, and Medicare in the beginning of June added diagnosis codes to the claims that you can download. In September, Medicare is going to add a procedural code line item detail to the claim file that you can download.