My attention tends to be drawn to Open Data because I want to write code to make sense of it.  I love the thought of building a Googlesque system to crunch terabytes of data and somehow magically defeat the healthcare problem with elegant algorithms and raw computing power.  I’m not the kind of person that can really solve this problem though.

The people that are going to solve the healthcare problem are doctors and policy makers and probably even a few quants (I hear that some of them aren’t too busy right now).  Some of them are very good at what they do, but they don’t necessarily have the means (well, the quants might) to harness Open Data and really deploy the smart, data driven, solutions that I think are necessary.  So where does this leave me?

Both the promise and the problem of an Open Source solution is that it relies wholly on collaboration.  A brilliant spark by itself will flame out almost immediately, but many sparks connected by a combustible fuel can burn hot and bright.  To switch metaphors, open healthcare does not necessarily need a Google, it instead needs its Facebook.

I’m writing this blog because I’m hoping it will help me discover what I can contribute to the solution.  I like to think I can write really cool software, but I’m fully aware that even the greatest software is useless without a market or a community to exploit it.  I’m not one of the primary solution providers I listed above so what I can build won’t solve the problem directly.  My best hope is not to be the spark, but the fuel.  If someone like me wants to hack the healthcare system, I need to do it by building an open network of people that can actually solve the problem.