Tag Archives: HHS

Solve the Outbreak (Mobile) Application from CDC

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Get clues about outbreaks, analyze the case and save lives in a fun engaging iPad app from CDC.

Introducing CDC’s new iPad app: Solve the Outbreak (Where you get to be the disease detective!)

New outbreaks happen every day and CDC’s disease detectives are on the front lines, working 24/7 to save lives and protect people. When a new outbreak happens, disease detectives are sent in to figure out how outbreaks are stared, before they can spread. In our new, free iPad app, you get to Solve the Outbreak.

In this interactive, engaging app, you get to decide what to do: Do you quarantine the village? Talk to the people who are sick? Ask for more lab results? The better your answers, the higher your score – and the more quickly you’ll save lives. You’ll start out as a Trainee and will earn badges by solving cases, with the goal of earning the top rank: Disease Detective.

Fun to play and learn

Perfect for teens, young adults, and public health nerds of all ages, Solve the Outbreak is a great way to take the study of epidemiology outside the classroom.

  • Learn about diseases and outbreaks in an engaging way.
  • See how disease detectives save lives around the world.
  • Try your hand at solving an outbreak.
  • Post your scores on Facebook or Twitter and challenge your friends to do better!

Reposted from CDC.gov.

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Coders! Developers! Data Scientists! Meet the Code-a-Palooza!

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Bryan Sivak, Chief Technology Officer, Department of Health and Human Services

US Dept of Health & Human Services logo with birdWhen we started planning the Health Datapalooza this year I asked the planning committee, “How could we make the Health Datapalooza bigger and better? Was there a way for us to do something at the Health Datapalooza this year that would directly contribute to improving health care at the point of clinical care? Was there a way we could help primary care providers make decisions about at risk patients in their practice?

The answer was simple – yes, with a live code-a-thon during the Health Datapalooza that will give ten teams the opportunity to code using the holy grail of health data – Medicare claims data!

I am excited to announce the launch of the Health Datapalooza Code-a-Palooza – a code-a-thon where teams will compete to build an app, tool or product that could be used by primary care providers and/or their office staff to improve the quality of care they deliver towards the total health of their patients.  The teams will be competing for $25,000 in sponsored prizes and using Medicare Parts A and B claims data for a 5% sample of Medicare beneficiaries. The data includes inpatient, outpatient, home health, hospice, skilled nursing facility, carrier, and durable medical equipment (DME) claims.

Just as you would expect, the Code-a-Palooza isn’t your typical code-a-thon for typical coders.  Teams should have a good understanding of Medicare claims data and what it’s like working in a clinical care setting.  When I think of what a successful team looks like, I think of four critical elements:

  • First, at least one person on your team has clinical acumen and understands the workings of a primary care practice, including provider workflows and the patient experience.
  • Secondly, you should have someone on your team who has killer data analytics skills.
  • Third (and most obvious), you should bring the designer and developer skillsets to the table.
  • Lastly, your team should bring some of your own data. The idea behind this is that teams will be able to use the 5% Medicare data to define a contextual denominator of costs and services and overlay that on your own data to get patient data resembling a real practice.  – The possibilities here are really exciting!

If you think you and your team have what it takes to be part of the first ever Code-a-Palooza, apply here and get your application in by May 4th.  If you feel like you have a lot to offer but don’t have a team, go ahead and submit your information to connect with other free-agents to form your team virtually.

Apply to participate in the Code-a-Palooza and be part of the movement that Health Datapalooza IV embodies. Come unleash the power of data and use your creativity and expertise to improve health care.

More details on the Code-a-Palooza can be found on HealthDatapalooza.org.

Reblogged from HealthData.Gov

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12 Big Ideas & Predictions for 2013

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Anthony Calabrese, Digital Communications Manager at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

We saw some big changes across the federal government with the introduction of the Digital Government Strategy in 2012. And it was a big year for innovation at the Department of Health & Human Services, where I’m part of a great team that’s working to transform us into the digital age. Looking forward, 2013 promises to be even bigger!

My colleagues at the Digital Communications Division at HHS and the Federal Web Managers Council have teamed up to bring you 12 big ideas & predictions for 2013:

  1. Help Wanted: Community Manager, Social Media Manager, Social Media Strategist, Social Media Coordinator will become official titles for positions within the federal government. Why does this matter? The right social media team can react quickly and effectively in time of crisis and take advantage of a Super Bowl-sized opportunity on the fly.
  2. 2013 will be the year that ‘m-dot’ died. More web managers will move to responsive design for their websites or mobile apps for targeted content.
  3. Not just responsive design. Responsive content too! Citizen engagement and better customer service will lead to a self-sustaining feedback loop that fuels constant iteration and constant site improvement.
  4. At your service! The success of the Project MyUSA (formerly MyGov) will mean we are finally giving citizens the level of customization and personalization they’ve been getting for years from private sector services.
  5. May I have your attention please? The use of rotating homepage billboards will continue regardless of their value or interest to the public.
  6. AP… what? Structured content and “content as data” will be game changers. This year, everybody will finally understand what an API is and what it does.
  7. #%@! Analytics & sentiment analysis will have a big impact on social media strategy in 2013 and beyond.
  8. [INFOGRAPHIC] Infographics like this will grow in importance as a light, sharable, and printable alternative to video.
  9. Here’s to your health! Health data will hit the mainstream as key parts of the Affordable Care Act kick in later this year. And HealthData.gov will exceed 500 open datasets.
  10. Open Government: Open source platforms will continue to dominate as content management systems offer opportunities for collaboration across the federal government.
  11. Git with the program! If you haven’t heard of GitHub, Twitter Bootstrap, and LESS CSS, you will by the end of 2013. They may change the way we do web.
  12. Not just for zombies. Gamification, incentivization, and competition on social media platforms will help our content to go viral. Engagement – it’s not just for zombies anymore.

Let us know what you think and share your own ideas and predictions in the comments.  Stay tuned for 12 more predictions coming soon.

Reblogged from the Digital Gov blog.

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Analytics, APIs and Open Content Resources

Posted on December 18, 2012 by Gwynne Kostin, Director, Digital Services Innovation Center

Tools, hammer, wire cutters, wrench, screwdriverAgencies have been working away at building better digital services and here, at the Digital Services Innovation Center, we’ve been building resources to help.

We have been focusing on three areas,

1. The Digital Analytics Program. We announced this program in early October to help agencies better measure performance and customer satisfaction to improve service delivery. It includes digital metrics guidance and best practices, training and a federal-wide Web analytics tool and support. We are rolling out the code for the tool to all agencies now. See more on the Digital Analytics Program and supercharge your analytics.

2. Open Content Management.  To support infrastructure and content needs across the federal government, we developed a CMS toolkit with resources to help agencies choose, design and migrate to a content management system (CMS). A CMS not only helps agencies efficiently manage their online content, but also can help them move to an open content model, making it easier for people to find, share, use, and re-use government information.  And, for agencies who need a government policy-compliant platform and hosting solution, we’ve alpha launched sites.usa.gov, an enterprise-ready CMS service in the cloud. We’re happy to help you get started.

3. API Resources. APIs have been called the “secret sauce” for digital services. They help open information (content and data) so it can be reused inside and outside of government. We’re helping agencies build out APIs by building out knowledge. Agencies can use the API Toolkit to learn API basics and see examples of APIs in government. We’ve also sponsored a six-part (and growing) API webinar series.

But much more important than the parts, is how this is working together to improve the service that government provides. Agencies are working on building out APIs and developer resources, like Department of Energy and the Department of Health and Human Services. They are making services available via mobile like solutions being offered by USDA and the Government Printing Office. And some are doing both at the same time, like the Census Bureau at the Department of Commerce.

Let us know what else you need, and what you have(!) to help build the future of anytime, anywhere and any device government.

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Introducing assets.cms.gov !

Posted on October 30, 2012 by Jon Booth Director, Website and New Media Group, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

This entry was reposted from the HHS.gov Digital Strategy Blog.

Have you heard about assets.cms.gov? Probably not, but if you work on or use CMS’ websites, it is a tool you use every day.

The Web & New Media Group (WNMG) started building assets.cms.gov about 10 months ago and completed the full launch of the site as part of the Medicare.gov redesign on August 21, 2012.

assets.cms.gov represents a shared code library for all of CMS’ public websites. As websites (ours and everyone else’s!) have grown in complexity over the past decade, they have come to be built on many common code and image libraries. These include the following file types:

  • Website headers & footers
  • Javascript libraries
  • CSS (stylesheet) files
  • Shared images
  • HTML snippets

Many of these files are developed by CMS and/or contractors, but there are also many common code libraries used across almost all commercial and Federal websites these days. Common libraries used by CMS include:

  • jQuery
  • Twitter Bootstrap
  • YUI (Yahoo! User Interface Library)

By placing all of these common code files onto assets.cms.gov, we can use the same code across all of CMS’ websites. assets.cms.gov supports both a global directory of assets used across all websites as well as folders for site-specific code libraries (e.g., www.cms.gov, www.medicare.gov, etc.).

Some of the benefits of this approach include:

  • The ability to cache files across all of CMS’ websites, resulting in better website performance
  • The ability to release new versions of code libraries across all websites at once
  • A common set of code built & tested to Section 508 compliance and cross-browser performance

I’ve mentioned how WNMG is using assets.cms.gov to support development of the public websites, but any CMS web-based project can be built against the assets.cms.gov framework. Using assets.cms.gov for your web project gains you all of the benefits above and also saves you development time by leveraging the work that has already been done.

assets.cms.gov Documentation & Downloads are available online. We are continuing to iterate and grow the amount of documentation online, so please check back frequently.

If you are interested in using assets.cms.gov for a web development project you are working on, please let us know in the comments. We are happy to address any questions you have or to provide additional information. Your feedback will help make this project better!

Please post all comments/feedback on the original HHS post.

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Here’s to Your Health

Posted on October 12, 2012 by DigiTalk Blog, US Department of Health and Human Services

Editor’s Note: We are featuring the work agencies are doing keeping with the letter and spirit of the Digital Strategy. This is on the value of APIs.

HHS has collected more than 284 datasets at healthdata.gov and the inventory is currently growing by almost 100 per year. Thirty-three of these databases are already API enabled. One of the largest is the HealthCare Finder API, which opens multiple data collections covering public and private health insurance plans.

Screenshot of US News Health Plan Finder

U.S. News & World Report uses the HHS HealthCare Finder API to create a tool to help consumers find the Best Health Insurance Plans for their specific needs. Their web-based Best Health Insurance Plans rates plans based on coverage and costs (both monthly and out-of-pocket), and makes it easy for users to find plans top-rated plans available to them. “We at U.S. News are thrilled to have access to the HealthCare Finder API and the important health insurance data it makes publicly available,” said Ben Harder, General Manager of Health Rankings at U.S. News. “Using the API, U.S. News has rated thousands of health plans across America, making it easier for individuals and families to compare their options and make better insurance-purchasing decisions.”

Other APIs provide access to information on the quality of provider care, the quality of hospital and nursing home care, a directory of federally qualified health centers, National Library of Medicine and Medline Plus resources, cancer incidence, FDA recalls, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s TOXMAP (Healthdata.gov includes datasets from across the U.S. Government).

Reblogged from the HHS Open Data Blog.

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Opening Up Our Data

Posted on August 27, 2012 by Bryan Sivak, Chief Technology Officer, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

This entry is reposted from the HHS Digitalk Blog

Earlier this summer, the U.S. Chief Information Officer, Steven VanRoekel released the federal government’s new digital strategy which aims to shift the way government information is accessed and consumed. Instead of focusing on producing a final product, which has been common practice for years, the government will now be making content more accurate, available and secure. One major tool in the information technology tool box being used to achieve this goal is the use of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

An API is a set of tools for building software applications. But more importantly, an API makes information more accessible. This is important for two reasons.

First, the use of APIs makes it easier to replicate government information across more places than ever before. APIs enable automatic updates of information when content is syndicated on other websites, while reducing actual person hours currently spent manually updating content.

Second, APIs make information and data easily available to developers, who can create Web and mobile applications that make information increasingly more useful to the public. We have already seen the benefits of liberating vast amounts of data through the Department of Health and Human Service’s Open Government Health Data Initiative, hundreds of applications like My Cancer Genome, HealthGrades,Archimedes’ IndiGO, and the Healthy Communities Network which have been developed for individuals, communities and service providers. HHS has been liberating vast amounts of its data, many of which have APIs and are on HealthData.gov.

As the government changes the way it does business—making content and Web APIs the new default—government information and data will be more open, accessible and useful for the public. This strategy will open doors for communication and give everyone the opportunity to use government information in a more meaningful way.

Join the conversation: #digitalk Please leave your comments on the original HHS Blog post.

 

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AIDS.gov: Anytime, Anywhere, on Any Device

Posted on July 10, 2012 by Jeremy Vanderlan, Technical Deputy, AIDS.gov

a desktop computer, tablet, and iphone all showing AIDS.gov

The internet has changed and continues to change how the American public receives information and interacts with the government. At AIDS.gov we are constantly adapting to the changing environment so we can use the most appropriate technology available to reach our diverse audiences. Recently, the federal government ushered us into this new era with the release of the Digital Government Strategy. A key element of the strategy is to allow for federal data and information to be shared anytime, anywhere, on any device.

Federal CIO Steve Van Roekel’s emphasis on making government “more efficient and able to adapt to inevitable changes in technology” typifies the ideals we have worked towards on the AIDS.gov project. We were pleased to see that the Digital Government Strategy listed responsive web design as a new standard or solution for addressing the inevitable changes in technology that will occur. Responsive web design is a technique that allows content to adjust to the size of the device that accesses the information. Phones, tablets, desktop computers, TV’s, and video game consoles all have different capabilities related to how content is displayed. Using responsive web design, Federal services can be designed to meet the needs of a broad audience. For an example of responsive web design, look at the new AIDS.gov on a smart phone and then on your desktop.

True to the principles of the Digital Government Strategy, AIDS.gov as a project has incorporated more services that are optimized for mobile over the past few years. We launched in 2006, began podcasting and using social media in 2007 and 2008, released the AIDS.gov HIV/AIDS Prevention and Service Provider Locator in 2009, launched a mobile website in 2010, and optimized additional services for mobile in 2011, including the Locator API.

While AIDS.gov has built new services and worked to keep up with the rapidly changing mobile landscape, we have learned that there are no easy or one-size-fits-all solutions that address the multiplying complexity of technological progress. We have learned that there are principles that can be applied to projects to ensure that our content and data can be reused and repurposed, across social media, new platforms, and the ever expanding class of devices and platforms that can now access web-based information.

Responsive web design represents the best way for us to achieve the goal of future friendly web resources built for the HIV/AIDS community. Building AIDS.gov responsively allows us to focus on the goal of ensuring any person, anywhere, in any situation and on any device can access basic HIV information, Federal HIV prevention resources and services, and the latest news on the Federal government’s response in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Re-blogged from AIDS.gov

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