Throughout this week, we will highlight the urgency and importance of attracting the best and brightest talent from around the world, especially in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The Senate bill would effectively “staple” a green card to the diplomas of advanced STEM graduates from U.S. universities, so that these talented researchers have a chance to stay and contribute to our economy.

Every foreign-born graduate with an advanced STEM degree is associated with, on average, 2.6 jobs for American workers. By some estimates, immigration was responsible for one-third of the growth in patenting in past decades, and these innovations contributed to increasing U.S. GDP by 2.4 percent. 

When President Obama delivered the commencement address at the University of California, Irvine this past weekend, he told the story of just one of these talented graduates:

There are people here who know what it means to dream.  When Mohamad Abedi was a boy, the suffering he saw in refugee camps in Lebanon didn’t drive him into despair -- it inspired him to become a doctor.  And when he came to America, he discovered a passion for engineering.  So here, at UC Irvine, he became a biomedical engineer to study the human brain.  And Mohamad said, “Had I never come to the United States, I would have never had the ability to do the work that I’m doing.”  He’s now going to CalTech to keep doing that work.

Today’s advanced STEM graduate could be tomorrow’s world-class, world-changing scientist. After all, one recent study looked at all U.S.-based Nobel laureates over the past 50 years, and found that 26 percent were foreign born.

When the President recently met with America’s nine most recently minted Nobel laureates in the Oval Office, we asked them to share their perspective on the importance of immigration reform. As you might imagine, these pioneering biologists, chemists, and economists had a great deal to say about the importance of maintaining America’s competitive advantage as a magnet for global talent:

Watch on YouTube

As the President has repeatedly emphasized, America needs a 21st century immigration system — one that strengthens border security, cracks down on employers that hire and exploit undocumented workers, creates a pathway to earned citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and removes obstacles to legal immigration. A system that welcomes the best and brightest scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs from around the world to innovate here in America.

It doesn’t take a Nobel Prize winner to understand that the time is now.

This is great news for the American people. These valuable data had been inaccessible for decades, and today’s release provides unprecedented visibility into how American seniors and people with disabilities on Medicare are treated.

These data create transparency for consumers to help inform their health care decisions such as which doctor to choose, or which course of treatment to pursue.

As we have seen with other releases of government data—from car safety ratings, to consumer credit card complaints, to weather and climate measurements and the recent launch of the Administration’s Climate Data Initiative to help spur the development of resiliency tools—this kind of openness and transparency can fuel innovation and research for years to come.

Today’s data release builds on the Administration’s longstanding commitment to releasing and leveraging data in support of enhanced transparency and accountability, improved government services, and a stronger economy. Over the past few years, the Administration has launched a series of Open Data Initiatives, which bring the benefits of open data to the American public by releasing troves of valuable data in areas such as health, energy, education, public safety, finance, and global development. 

For example, just last year, Medicare published new data that for the first time gives consumers information on what hospitals charge for common inpatient procedures - a major step forward for hospital price transparency and accountability.  You can learn more about other efforts to make health care data more open and accessible here.

We will continue to work with agencies across the government to unleash the power of open data and to make government data more accessible and usable for entrepreneurs, companies, researchers, and citizens everywhere – innovators who can leverage these resources to benefit Americans in a rapidly growing array of exciting and powerful ways.

The Obama Administration cares deeply about innovation, and about helping to make sure that geeks across the country, those coming up with new discoveries and exciting inventions—and creating jobs along the way—have the freedom and security to keep innovating. 

That’s why today we are launching #GeeksGetCovered, an effort focused on raising awareness, sharing stories, and encouraging healthcare enrollment among geeks, innovators, and entrepreneurs. 

Because of the Affordable Care Act, millions of Americans finally have the security that comes from quality, affordable health coverage.  And, millions more have better, more reliable coverage than ever before.  The Affordable Care Act also means that this year, geeks, entrepreneurs, researchers, and others can now make the decision to innovate and pursue their dreams without fear of losing coverage or worrying that a preexisting condition or new illness will bankrupt their families.

As the President said last year, “If you’ve got a great idea for your own business but you’ve never tried it because your spouse had a preexisting condition and you didn’t want to lose your employer-based coverage, you’ve got the ability now to get your own coverage.  That’s security.  That’s freedom.” 

Today, there is strong evidence that when affordable healthcare isn’t exclusively tied to employment, in more instances people choose to start their own companies. For example:

• A recent study estimates that because high-quality health insurance coverage will no longer be tied exclusively to one’s employer, the number of self-employed Americans could increase by up to 1.5 million in 2014.
• Another study indicates that the Affordable Care Act has already boosted entrepreneurship rates by providing young innovators coverage that helps them chase their dreams.
• Another study shows that Americans are more likely to start a business at age 65 than at age 64, after they have the security of healthcare through Medicare.

And what’s true for entrepreneurs launching the next company is just as true for PhD students or part-time researchers working to expand the frontiers of human knowledge.  These scientists researching a cure for the deadliest diseases or creating game-changing technologies have more options today than ever before to access affordable, quality health insurance in the new insurance marketplaces.

So to all the geeks out there:  we’d love to hear from you on social media about what affordable coverage means to you as a geek using #GeeksGetCovered.  View the video from geeks at the White House to fellow geeks across America and check out Healthcare.gov today! 

We are witnessing the emergence of a data-powered revolution in health care. Catalyzed by the Recovery Act, adoption of electronic health records is increasing dramatically. More than half of all doctors and other eligible providers and nearly 80 percent of hospitals are using electronic health records to improve care, an increase of more than 200 percent since 2008. In addition, the Administration’s Health Data Initiative is making a growing supply of key government data on everything from hospital charges and quality to regional health care system performance statistics freely available in computer-readable, downloadable form, as fuel for innovation, entrepreneurship, and discovery.

As Friedman describes, these trends, combined with efforts under the Affordable Care Act to change how we pay health care providers to better reward improving the quality and value of care, are creating a “new marketplace and platform for innovation.” Entrepreneurs and innovators across the country are developing and deploying new data-powered IT tools to help clinicians succeed at delivering better care at lower cost.

These tools are giving clinicians the ability to measure how they are doing, compare how they are doing relative to others, and set and meet goals. They are enabling clinicians to analyze their patient population, understand who needs help (including and especially patients who haven’t been able to come into their office), and proactively reach out and give those patients the care they need. They are helping clinicians and patients get the latest and greatest evidence-based, life-saving best practices at their fingertips. And much more.

Many of the entrepreneurs and innovators who are driving this revolution will be joining us and leaders from across the health care system next week at the fourth annual Health Datapalooza, a national celebration of data-powered innovation in health care.

We are beginning to see what happens when you unleash the power of American innovators and data to transform health care for the better from the ground up.  It’s no surprise to the doctors, hospitals, patients and entrepreneurs who have been working so hard to improve health care. But it is, indeed, great news for the nation.

Read more:

• Good News on Innovation and Health Care
• More than Half of Doctors Now Use Electronic Health Records

The Dashboard includes data for 2011 and presents summarized information on the prevalence of chronic conditions, as well as aggregate Medicare costs and utilization measures for beneficiaries with multiple chronic conditions at various geographic levels – national, state, and hospital referral region. Examples of what you can find in the Dashboard include:

• Summary statistics for Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) beneficiaries residing in the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, who were continuously enrolled in Medicare FFS, parts A and B, for 2011.
• Geographic comparisons (national, state, and hospital referral region) and population comparisons (sex, age, dually eligible for Medicaid) for the following metrics:
  
  
  • the prevalence of 15 chronic conditions;
  • the prevalence of multiple chronic conditions;
  • the per capita Medicare spending by the number of chronic conditions;
  • the 30-day hospital readmission rate by the number of chronic conditions;
  • the number of emergency department (ER) visits per 1,000 beneficiaries by number of chronic conditions.

In addition, you can directly download the population-level data underlying these calculations in machine-readable formats to produce your own analysis (all while protecting beneficiary privacy; no patient-level data is being released).

Currently, little is known about differences in health care use and spending across states (or other geographic areas) for populations with multiple chronic conditions. The Dashboard’s data analytics compare information in beneficiary populations and in different geographic settings, which can help to identify areas for improving health outcomes, lowering costs, and maximizing patients’ quality of life.

Read the Chronic Conditions Dashboard Press Release.

After we announced our plans to create the Presidential Innovation Fellows program at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York City on May 23, nearly 700 of you applied for Fellowship spots, offering to drop everything you were doing and come serve your country.

On Thursday, August 23, we will introduce the inaugural Fellows at a White House launch event, which will be streamed live on WhiteHouse.gov/live beginning at 10am EDT. And you can follow along on Twitter with the hashtag #innovategov. Joining me at the event will be a number of champions of innovation in government, including Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget Jeff Zients, Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management John Berry, and U.S. Chief Information Officer Steve VanRoekel.

The five game-changing projects:

• MyGov (@ProjectMyGov) will create a rapid prototype of a streamlined online system that citizens will be able to use to easily access the information and services that are right for them from across the federal government.
• Open Data Initiatives (@ProjectOpenData) will accelerate and expand our efforts to make government data more publicly accessible in “computer-readable” form and spur the use of those data by entrepreneurs as fuel for the creation of new products, services, and jobs.
• The 20% Initiative (@ProjectTwenty) will work to transition “the last mile” of international development assistance payments from cash to electronic methods – lowering administrative costs, promoting financial inclusion, and reducing theft, fraud, and violence.
• RFP-EZ (@ProjectRFPEZ) will develop a new process and online marketplace that will make it vastly easier for the government and small high-growth tech startups to do business with each other, effectively opening up the government market to these startups as never before and enabling the government to buy better, lower-cost tech solutions from the full range of American businesses. 
• Blue Button for America (@ProjectBlueBtn) will spread the ability for millions of Americans to easily and securely download their own health information electronically, empowering them to take that information with them should they change insurer or provider and share it with their loved ones or doctors if they choose, all while fueling the emergence of time-saving, money-saving, and even life-saving products and the businesses and jobs that those products will support.

So tune in on Thursday!  And if you want to learn more, follow the progress of these projects, and help contribute to their success, sign up here.

Following the live event Thursday morning, I’ll be hosting a special session of White House Office Hours on Twitter at 5pm EDT to discuss the launch of the Presidential Innovation Fellows and the projects they will be pursuing.

Here’s how it works:

• Ask your questions now and during the live event on Twitter with the hashtag #WHChat
• Follow the Q&A live through the @WHLive and @WhiteHouseOSTP Twitter accounts
• If you miss the live session, the full session will be posted on WhiteHouse.gov and Storify.com/Whitehouse

We are kicking off the program with five projects that seek to save taxpayers money, fuel job creation, and improve the return government is delivering to the American people:   

• The Open Data Initiatives Program: This program aims to stimulate a rising tide of entrepreneurship that uses data from governmental and non-governmental sources to create tools that can help Americans better navigate their world, such as by finding the right health care provider, identifying the college that provides the best value for their money, saving money on electricity bills through smarter energy shopping, keeping their families safe by knowing which products have been recalled, and much more. Building upon prior success stories in which entrepreneurial innovators built amazing products based on the release of  weather, GPS, and health-related data, this program will speed and expand the release of government data and voluntarily-contributed private-sector data in machine-readable form in realms including health, education, energy, safety, the nonprofit sector, and personal finance.  Through ideation workshops, codeathons, and “datapaloozas” that showcase the best innovations, the program will actively stimulate the creation of new apps and services by creative entrepreneurs– improving the lives of Americans in many tangible ways and creating jobs of the future at the same time.              
• Blue Button for America: This initiative will seek to expand nationwide adoption of Blue Button, a capability that enables consumers to securely download electronic copies of their own health information.  It will create tools that make adoption and operation of Blue Button even easier by public-sector and private-sector organizations, and also stimulate the development of new apps and services by entrepreneurs that can help consumers use Blue Button data to improve their health and care.  
• MyGov: This project will reimagine the relationship between the Federal Government and citizens by rapidly prototyping a streamlined, intuitive online system that Americans can use to easily access the right information and services for them from across the U.S. Government and also provide feedback about their interactive experience.   
• RFP-EZ: This project will develop a process and a platform that makes it easier for the Federal Government to procure innovative technology solutions from small, high-growth companies. This will enable more startups to access the government marketplace, fueling job growth, and will also result in the adoption of lower-cost, higher-impact IT solutions by agencies, saving taxpayers money and improving results delivered.    
• The 20% Campaign: This USAID-led initiative seeks to create a system that enables US Government programs to seamlessly move away from making cash payments to support foreign policy, development assistance, government operations, or commercial activities and transition to using electronic payment mechanisms such as mobile devices, smart cards, and other methods. Moving from cash to electronic payment promises to reduce waste and administrative costs while simultaneously improving outcomes significantly. 

We’re looking for about 15 amazing innovators who are interested in coming to Washington, DC, for 6- to 12-month Fellowships, beginning in July, to work on these projects. We’d also like to connect with folks who may not be able to come to DC to be a Fellow, but who are interested in following the progress of these five projects and participating in them in some way – for example, entrepreneurs who are interested in learning more about government data resources that are becoming available and developing innovative products that make use of these data. 

You can express interest in being a Fellow or in following and participating in one of the five projects in another capacity at obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/innovationfellows.

This is a terrific opportunity to sign up to create, and drive change for your country!  If you are an accomplished innovator and if one of these five projects gets you fired up, we encourage you to throw your hat into the ring to join the team!