Clinical Data as the Basic Staple of Health Learning:

Creating And Protecting A Public Good

A Learning Healthcare System Workshop

IOM Roundtable on Evidence-Based Medicine

February 28-29, 2008

The Keck Center of the National Academies

Washington, DC 20001 

Workshop agenda, common themes, and presentations are available below. 

Discovering what works best in medical care—including for whom and under what circumstances—requires that clinical data be carefully nurtured as a resource for continuous learning.  Participants seek to explore the transformational opportunities that could be available by evolving large and potentially interoperable clinical and administrative data sets, held in multiple activities and many institutions.  Challenges such as barriers and restrictions that derive from the treatment of medical care data as a proprietary commodity by the organizations involved will also be addressed.  Broader access and use of healthcare data for new insights requires not only fostering data system reliability and interoperability, but addressing the matter of individual data ownership and the extent to which data central to progress in health and health care should constitute a public good.