Editor's Note: this blog stems from Cambia Grove's Solutions Lab work. This initiative was built upon the idea that the community has all the right ingredients to solve big health care challenges. 

Responding to the needs of innovators

Earlier this year, Cambia Grove launched our Solutions Lab, an initiative aimed at breaking down barriers to innovation in health care. In direct response to feedback from our community of changemakers, we selected data as the inaugural topic to tackle. After meeting with numerous stakeholders from across the system, we heard again and again that while data is abundant in the health care system, it is difficult to access.

To bridge this gap, we built a Data Resource Directory, which is available on our website to connect our community with the resources they need. To populate this directory, we launched a crowdsource campaign, calling for submissions from datasets that meet three criteria:

1. The data could help improve the health of individuals or populations
2. The data is currently accessible to health care change-makers
3. The steps to gain access are clear

Community steps up to meet the challenge

Immediate responses from the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Fred Hutch) set the momentum for a wealth of submissions. To date, we have received nearly 20 submissions from around the country! This supports our hypothesis that the data is out there—it just needs to be uncovered.
We've received submissions from a wide variety of categories, including:

• Clinical Data (ex. the Global Alzheimer’s Association Interactive Network and SMART Health IT)
• Claims and Transactions (ex. the Washington Health Alliance and Oregon/Washington State All Payer Claims Databases)
• Population, Public Health and Social Services (ex. the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and the Washington Tracking Network)
• Administration and Operations (ex. Leavitt Partners Insight and Grant Integrated Services)

Directory launch is live—be a contributor!

We will wrap up our efforts to collect the first wave of submissions at the end of September. If you have a data resource that you would like to showcase please take 15 minutes to fill out this online form.

We hope our Data Resource Directory will streamline your path to innovation and remove barriers as you drive toward system-wide transformation!

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