Ireland Opens E-Health Open Data Portal; Huff Post, August 8, 2017

Adi Gaskell, Huff Post; Ireland Opens E-Health Open Data Portal

"I’ve written extensively about the growing importance of data in healthcare in the past year, and it’s pleasing to see that changes are slowly beginning to emerge in the sector.

The latest of these comes from Ireland, where an open data portal has been launched by eHealth Ireland.  The portal aims to bring together some 300 different open data sources into one place, making it easier to find data from across the Irish Health Sector...

The data itself is open, free and reusable, and the project is a key part of the Public Service Reform agenda.  It is wrapped up in the  Open Health Data Policy, which aims to provide a framework for the accessibility and availability of open data in the Irish health system.

The project follows a number of clearly defined Open Health Data Principles that are designed to support the health service in the provision of better patient care and in the support of new innovations in the sector, all whilst ensuring that patient data is secured and governed appropriately."

Pennsylvania Announces Open Data Portal; Government Technology, 4/18/16

Colin Wood, Government Technology; Pennsylvania Announces Open Data Portal:

"Pennsylvania is renewing its commitment to transparency.

On April 18, Gov. Tom Wolf, who assumed office in January, signed an executive order to create an open data portal. The new portal is mandated to contain downloadable, machine-readable data, a feature not offered by the state’s existing transparency site called PennWATCH. The state Office of Administration is also mandated to help agencies find their most valuable data sets...

The commonwealth’s data portal efforts are to be led by Julie Snyder, director of the Office of Data and Digital Technology at the Office of Administration. By working closely with the state’s agencies, civic hacker community, universities and cities, she will identify which data sets are most useful to be unlocked first, said Sharon Minnich, secretary of the Office of Administration. To develop its plan, Minnich said, Pennsylvania not only looked around the nation to spot best practices, but also assessed plans closer to home, asking Pittsburgh for advice.

“There’s a lot of open data out there that doesn’t necessarily get downloaded, so we want to make sure we put out the most valuable information,” she said. “In speaking to the universities, there really were a broad spectrum of interests. It’s going to depend on what the use cases would be for those data sets we would publish.”"

Gov. Wolf signs open data executive order; Technical.ly, 4/18/16

Juliana Reyes, Technical.ly; Gov. Wolf signs open data executive order:

"Four years after Mayor Michael Nutter signed an open data executive order for the City of Philadelphia, Gov. Tom Wolf is signing one for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

“Our goal,” Wolf said in a statement, “is to make data available in order to engage citizens, create economic opportunities for businesses and entrepreneurs, and develop innovative policy solutions that improve program delivery and streamline operations.”

As part of the order, the state will form an advisory committee and launch an open data portal. The state aims to launch the portal in August, where it says it will post data in a machine-readable format. The first datasets slated for release will be focused on Wolf’s goals, said Office of Administration Secretary Sharon Minnich.

The order will be carried out by Julie Snyder, director of the Office of Data and Digital Technology. Snyder, the former chief information officer of the Department of Environmental Protection, reports to Minnich."

City lays out next steps in Open Data Plan; Chicago Tribune, 2/7/14

Amina Elahi, Chicago Tribune; City lays out next steps in Open Data Plan:

"Using public civic data, developers have created Web apps such as legislation-tracker Chicago Councilmatic and the interactive 2nd City Zoning map.

Others have used the data to build businesses. SpotHero won the 2011 Apps for Metro Chicago contest with a product built on data from the City of Chicago and other local agencies. Today, the parking app is available in seven cities.

The city posts select data sets to GitHub, an open source code-sharing platform. Developers are free to build upon or manipulate that data, since it is covered by an MIT License.

The City of Chicago's Data Dictionary, which anyone can search to find out whether the portal or GitHub hosts data sets on particular topics, is another such tool. In its current form, the technical results may turn off less experienced users, but Schenk says future plans include improving the interface and filtering."