AUSTIN, TEXAS (PRWEB) SEPTEMBER 06, 2018 – The inaugural National Health Equity Hackathon will focus on creating data-driven solutions for underserved healthcare populations. The idea began with Health and Human Services’ Chief Data Officer, Mona Siddiqui, CareSet Systems CTO Fred Trotter, and Senior Director of Applied Research & Analytics at the American Hospital Association, Dr. Norma Padron during Datapalooza in Washington, DC this past April.
“I approached Mona on this as I thought we could do more with open data sets,” says Fred Trotter, Chief Technology Officer for CareSet Systems. CareSet works with Medicare to release Public Use Files that originate with Medicare claims data and was recently awarded first-ever access to Medicare Advantage Data by CMS Administrator Seema Verma.
“Creating value from data is a journey,” says Siddiqui. “As HHS moves to become a more data-driven organization, hackathons like this show exactly how open data can be leveraged across multiple disciplines to make an impact on health related decisions.”
The hackathon will be October 19 – 21 at Capital Factory in Austin, Texas and includes sponsorship support from the Institute for Diversity and Health Equity of the American Hospital Association and CareSet Systems, with additional support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the American Nurses Association, Design Institute for Health at Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin, Innovation Learning Network, Socrata, and others.
The hackathon will focus on finding inclusive and creative ways to leverage open data, technology and data science to understand and address health equity issues. The overarching areas of focus will include: publicly available data on social determinants of health, including data on racial or gender disparities, people living with chronic illness, the frail elderly, homelessness, and data on regions affected by the opioid crisis.
Using open source datasets, and open source technologies, this weekend-long hackathon will gather multiple tech disciplines around a common goal: inclusive ways of leveraging open data to identify solutions and eliminating health disparities. Local and nationally-acclaimed mentors and data scientists will be accessible throughout the event. Attendees will self-select to a team with diverse perspectives.
The hackathon is looking for innovators in the following roles: data visualization experts, health economists, talented students, leaders in population health and health policy, coders, entrepreneurs, and other curious IT or healthcare experts.
For media inquiries, contact Brian Lang at: brian@energizinghealth.org, 281-345-8022