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Office of Science and Technology Policy Blog

  • ‘Blue Button’ Provides Access to Downloadable Personal Health Data

    Posted by Aneesh Chopra, Todd Park, and Peter L. Levin on October 7, 2010 at 3:47 PM EDT

    In August, President Obama announced the creation of a new “Blue Button”—a web-based feature through which patients may easily download their health information and share it with health care providers, caregivers, and others they trust. Since then, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have beta-tested their respective systems—with great success.

    Today the Administration is announcing the formal launch of Blue Button for Veterans and Medicare beneficiaries, as well as announcing the winners of a groundbreaking challenge by two leading foundations for private-sector vendors to create applications that have the potential to provide secure, reliable, and portable personal health records while supporting the Administration’s goal of encouraging greater use of health information technology, including electronic health records.

    Veterans who log onto My HealtheVet at www.myhealth.va.gov and click the Blue Button can save or print information from their own health records. Using a similar Blue Button, Medicare beneficiaries who are registered users of www.mymedicare.gov   can log onto a secure site where they can save or print their Medicare claims and self-entered personal information. Data from of each site can be used to create portable medical histories that will facilitate dialog with Veterans’ and beneficiaries’ health care providers, caregivers, and other trusted individuals or entities.

    This new option will help Veterans and Medicare beneficiaries save their information on individual computers and portable storage devices or print that information in hard copy. Having ready access to personal health information from Medicare claims can help beneficiaries understand their medical history and partner more effectively with providers. With the advent of the Blue Button feature, Medicare beneficiaries will be able to view their claims and self-entered information—and be able to export that data onto their own computer. The information is downloaded as an “ASCII text file,” the easiest and simplest electronic text format. This file is also easy to read by the individual; it looks like an organized report.

    The My HealtheVet personal health record includes self-entered health metrics (including blood pressure, weight, and heart rate), emergency contact information, test results, family health history, military health history, and other health-related information. The ASCII text file that Veterans can download will include this information. As additional personal health information becomes available to VA patients through the My HealtheVet personal health record, this will also be added to the VA Blue Button download. The VA’s Blue Button system has generated an overwhelmingly positive response since its soft launch this summer; more than 60,000 Veterans have already used it to access their records.

    Registered users of MyMedicare.gov have long been able to view their Medicare claims information, and they have been able to add their personal and health information such as emergency contact information, names of pharmacies and providers, self-reported allergies, medical conditions, and prescription drugs. Now, with the Blue Button, CMS is making it convenient and safe for them to download and share this information in an easy-to-read and portable format. The CMS Blue Button has generated a positive response since its soft launch as well; more than 5,600 beneficiaries have already used it to download their data.

    An open-government initiative, Blue Button results from a collaboration between VA and HHS to develop an online feature that would enable Veterans and Medicare beneficiaries to easily read, use, and share their personal health information with providers and others they trust. The ASCII text file format was selected for its ease of use by individuals, while allowing computers to easily “read” the information.

    In developing this opportunity, VA and CMS both stress the importance to users of protecting the electronic information on their personal computers with appropriate security measures. Once individuals download their data, they will need to ensure its safety—for example, by encryption or password protection.

    As of today, Blue Button will be accessible to all My HealtheVet accounts—about one million Veterans in all—as well as 47 million Medicare enrollees. The VA and Medicare systems protect patient privacy by allowing access only to authenticated users. Also, reflecting the Obama Administration’s emphasis on fostering new innovation ecosystems, Blue Button is designed to encourage and accommodate improvements by third-party application developers.

    In fact, to make this information even more useful, the Markle and Robert Wood Johnson Foundations recently challenged developers to create applications that expand on the Blue Button’s promise by helping consumers use their data to stay healthy and manage their care. Eighteen companies competed for the $2,500 prize and the opportunity to have coffee with Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody and Cognitive Surplus. Submissions were judged on their usefulness, potential impact on health, ease of use, and accessibly from a variety of computing platforms.

    Today we are pleased to announce the winner of this challenge: Adobe’s Blue Button Health Assistant. This new “app” provides a comfortable and familiar user layout and eases the linkage of consumer information—including immunizations, allergies, medications, family health history, lab test results, and military service histories—among patients, providers, and caregivers using My HealtheVet, or claims data for those using the CMS Button.

    Soon, Blue Button users may be able to augment the downloaded information that is housed on their computers—or that they transferred to a commercial personal health record or other health application—through automated connections to, and downloads from, major pharmacies including Walgreens and CVS; lab systems such as Quest and LabCorp; and an increasing number of inpatient and outpatient electronic medical records systems.

    Adobe’s achievement, along with the recently announced Blue Button capability for Microsoft’s HeathVault, demonstrates the innovative power that advanced information technology can bring to healthcare. The Blue Button challenge has empowered tens of thousands of Americans and seeded a growth industry that should help lower healthcare costs and improve quality.

    Aneesh Chopra is the U.S. Chief Technology Officer and Associate Director for Technology in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

    Todd Park is Chief Technology Officer at the Department of Health and Human Services

    Peter L. Levin is Senior Advisor to the Secretary & Chief Technology Officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs

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  • U.S. Research Nabs Chemistry Nobel

    Posted by Rick Weiss on October 6, 2010 at 12:39 PM EDT

    An American chemist, and a Japanese chemist who has lived and worked in the United States for the past 50 years, were among those named today as winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

    Richard Heck, an American who did much of his work at the University of Delaware, was awarded the prize, along with Ei-ichi Negishi, a Japanese citizen who has long been affiliated with Purdue University in Indiana, and Akira Suzuki of Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan.

    The three are sharing this year’s prize for their development of laboratory methods that help chemists build complex molecules out of carbon atoms. Specifically, these methods allow scientists to attach carbon atoms to one another in precise configurations more efficiently than was previously possible. This process is called “palladium-catalyzed cross coupling” because it uses the element palladium to get normally reclusive carbon atoms to react with one another.

    Palladium-catalyzed cross coupling is used in research worldwide, as well as in the commercial production of pharmaceuticals and to make molecules that are used in the electronics industry. The so-called Heck's reaction in particular has been used to synthesize such compounds as morphine; the cancer drug Taxol; a widely used herbicide; certain steroid hormones; and the poison strychnine.

    Heck worked at Hercules Co., in Wilmington, DE—a producer of adhesives and other organic chemicals—in the 1950s, then moved to the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Delaware in 1971, where he remained until retiring in 1989. While at the University, his work was supported with more than $500,000 in research grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The Nobel committee’s recognition of the importance of his accomplishments and their great value to society is a wonderful reminder of the value of these and other Federal investments in basic research.

    Co-winner Negishi came to the University of Pennsylvania on a Fulbright Scholarship and obtained his Ph.D. degree in 1963. He did a postdoc at Purdue University starting in 1966, after which he took a position at Syracuse University in 1972. In 1979 he was invited back to Purdue University as a full professor.

    The eponymous Negishi reaction is used as a central step in the synthesis of laboratory-produced discodermolide, a poison created in nature by a marine sponge that attacks cancer cells in the same manner as Taxol—one of the world’s most frequently used cancer drugs—and may someday be used as a chemotherapy drug. Negishi has received approximately $3.5 million in funding from the NSF and the National Institutes of Health.

    Congratulations to the winners, and to the Federal agencies and peer reviewers who recognized the seminal value of their work early on!

     Rick Weiss is Director of Strategic Communications and a Senior Policy Analyst in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

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  • The Director's Week in Review: Keynotes, International Collaboration, and STEM--Oh, My

    Posted by Peter Colohan on October 2, 2010 at 4:09 PM EDT

    OSTP Director John P. Holdren always walks fast, but he was in particularly high gear this week supporting the President’s science and technology agenda at a number of exciting and productive venues.

    On Wednesday he addressed a packed press conference in downtown Washington at the National Academy of Sciences’ Koshland Museum to help unveil the upcoming USA Science and Engineering Festival, which will cover much of the National Mall on Oct. 23 and 24. During the press conference, Dr. Holdren reinforced President Obama’s commitment to science, technology, engineering, and math education and the Administration’s pioneering initiatives in this area, including Educate to Innovate and the recently unveiled Change the Equation. Several dozen local middle school students offered a sneak preview of the many exciting projects to be featured at the Festival, which will include more than 750 hands-on, interactive exhibits spanning aerospace, green energy, medicine, biotechnology, climatology, robotics, nanotechnology, botany, neuroscience, genetics, and many other scientific disciplines. More than 350 of the nation's leading science and engineering organizations are partners, including colleges and universities, corporations, Federal agencies, museums and science centers, and professional engineering and science societies.

    Earlier in the week, Dr. Holdren shook hands with his European counterparts at the US‐European Union Summit on Science, Technology, Innovation, and Sustainable Economic Growth. The summit, held at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC, kicked off a year-long dialogue between the United States and the European Union on how to use science to spur innovation and jump-start the global economy. U.S. and European experts are working to identify ways to move science and technology off the laboratory workbench and into the hands of entrepreneurs to boost economic activity on both sides of the Atlantic by applying science and technology in new ways.

    Dr. Holdren also joined Secretary of Energy Steve Chu this week at the 2010 US-India Energy Partnership Summit, held in Washington, DC. Dr. Holdren delivered a keynote speech for the meeting, which focused on issues relating to national and international energy security.

    Finally Dr. Holdren attended a meeting at the American Association for the Advancement of Science at which he formally accepted a report summarizing the findings of the Climate Adaptation Summit held in Washington in May. That meeting explored ways that the Federal government can best prepare the country to adapt to the challenges of climate change, and will be an important element within the growing array of Federal activities in this domain.

    And last night Dr. Holdren traveled to St. Louis, where he delivered the keynote address at the Global Energy Future symposium at Washington University. The goals of the symposium are to assess the world’s future energy needs; evaluate the ability of the available resources to meet those needs; and identify research opportunities that might reduce carbon dioxide emission, improve efficiency of energy utilization, or lead to more rapid deployment of renewable energy sources.

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  • US Government First to Share Patents with Medicines Patent Pool

    Posted by Hillary Chen on September 30, 2010 at 8:00 PM EDT

    Kudos to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for being the first in the world to share patents with the newly established Medicines Patent Pool!

    Just last week, President Obama signed a Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development that focuses on sustainable development outcomes and places a premium on broad-based economic growth, democratic governance, game-changing innovations, and sustainable systems for meeting basic human needs. The new Policy aims to leverage innovation to solve long-standing development challenges, encourage new models for innovation and to increase developing countries’ utilization of science and technology. A fact sheet on the policy appears on WhiteHouse.gov.

    The initial contribution by the NIH and co-patent owner the University of Illinois at Chicago embodies these commitments and takes an important step toward making affordable and appropriate HIV medicines available to patients around the world. It builds on the President’s previous commitment to support humanitarian licensing policies to ensure that medications developed with U.S. taxpayer dollars are available off-patent in developing countries. The patents—which previously have been licensed for the HIV drug darunavir—are relevant to protease inhibitor HIV medicines, which are primarily used to treat drug-resistant HIV infection. The license to the Medicines Patent Pool stipulates that the technology will be available for the benefit of all low- and middle-income countries, as defined by the World Bank, and is royalty-free. The text of the licensing agreement is available on the UNITAID website (pdf).

    The Medicines Patent Pool is supported by UNITAID, an innovative global health financing mechanism that was co-founded by Brazil, Chile, France, Norway and the United Kingdom at the United Nations General Assembly in 2006. It is a voluntary mechanism through which pharmaceutical patent holders can choose to license their patents to the Pool. The Pool then makes the licenses available to qualified third parties, such as generic drug manufacturers, which will pay appropriate royalties on the sale of the medicines for use in developing countries.

    The Medicines Patent Pool is designed to:

    • speed up the pace at which newer medicines reach patients;
    • help bring prices down by encouraging competition among multiple producers; and
    • facilitate new medicine formulations, including versions for children and versions in which several drugs are combined into a single pill.

    As patent owners from around the world—including governments, companies, universities, non-profits, and individuals—license their HIV technologies to the Medicines Patent Pool, it will become a one-stop shop for efficient licensing of the technologies that are necessary for the production of generic versions of patented HIV medicines.

    It’s important to note that multiple patents are involved in each HIV medicine, so the patents licensed today are not sufficient to produce or sell any single drug. Thus it’s critical that other patent holders also share their patents with the Pool.

    As a global leader in research and development, the United States has an important catalyzing role to play in promoting voluntary mechanisms that will increase competition to provide innovative, affordable health technologies to people in low- and middle-income countries. The U.S. contribution to the Medicines Patent Pool, combined with licenses from private-sector partners and governments from around the world, presents an exciting opportunity to do just that and promote access to medicines globally.

    Again, kudos to the NIH and the Medicines Patent Pool!

    Hillary Chen is Advisor to the Deputy Director for Policy in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

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  • Quintessentially American: Leveling the Playing Field for Best Ideas to Combat Diabetes

    Posted by Robynn Sturm on September 30, 2010 at 5:28 PM EDT

    Earlier this week, I witnessed a striking role-reversal in the field of biomedical research. The Dean of Harvard Medical School, Jeffrey S. Flier, a prominent diabetes researcher in his own right, listened intently as undergraduate Megan Blewett presented her pioneering proposal to advance Type One Diabetes research in promising new directions.

    Blewett, a senior at Harvard, was one of 12 winners of a Challenge sponsored by the Harvard Catalyst for the best and most feasible hypotheses that might drive the development of better tools for the diagnosis, treatment, or cure of Type 1 Diabetes. Funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Research Resources as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and led by Eva Guinan of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Karim Lakhani of Harvard Business school, the initiative leveraged crowdsourcing techniques to solicit out-of-the-box insights—encouraging people with expertise in areas unrelated to diabetes to apply insights from their disciplines to this biomedical challenge. The Challenge was posted to a global, open innovation marketplace and promoted by Harvard University President Drew Faust, who sent a letter to the entire University community at the Challenge’s launch.

    The impressive winners selected from more than 190 entries by a multidisciplinary panel included not only an undergraduate, but also an MD/PhD student, an anonymous patient, a cardiologist, a biostatistician, a human resources representative, and a collaborative team from four universities. Harvard Catalyst has already secured a $1 million grant from the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust to support research proposals from the academic community to explore some or all of the scientific questions posed by the winners.

    Blewett was excited by the prospect of her idea driving scientific inquiry. But most impressive, she said, was seeing how the Challenge could facilitate in the biomedical arena the kind of accelerated innovation she has witnessed in computer science and other disciplines that are less dependent on expensive lab equipment and infrastructure. “The fantastic thing about this challenge is that it lowers the barriers to entry. So all you really need is an idea and Internet access,” she said. “And, I think that’s quintessentially American.”

    Specialists, too, praised the Challenge for unbundling ideation from the formal grant application process. Harvard endocrinologist and Challenge winner Jason Gaglia said it was “freeing” to be able to contemplate the most important and feasible question to ask, regardless of whether his lab had the specific expertise or full resources needed to address it.

    For Kevin Dolan the Challenge was very personal. As a patient diagnosed with the disease at the age of 16, Dolan perceived the Challenge as an opportunity to communicate to the world’s top researchers the innovations that would have the greatest impact on his day-to-day life. Dolan is not a scientist, but his proposal to develop a non-invasive blood glucose monitor was selected in a blind review by a prestigious panel of judges.

    Results like these are the driving force behind the Obama Administration’s commitment to increase the use of prizes and challenges to spur innovation. Hats off to the National Center for Research Resources for leading the way and to all of the inspiring contestants who answered their call!

    More information about the 12 winners and their ideas plus video of the September 28th awards ceremony at Harvard Medical School is available online.

    Robynn Sturm is Advisor for Open Innovation to the Deputy Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

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  • OSTP on the Lookout for Student Volunteers

    Posted by Phil Larson on September 29, 2010 at 2:52 PM EDT

    Applications for the spring 2011 OSTP Student Volunteer Program will be accepted through Friday, October 8. Visit the Student Volunteer page to learn more about the program and what areas may be a good fit for you. There is information on how to apply here.

    Working side-by-side with OSTP staff, Student Volunteers have the opportunity to work in an Administration that is harnessing the power of science and technology to confront the challenges we face today.

    So, whether your interests are in energy and the environment, science and engineering education, national security, information technology, biotechnology, or any of the other policy domains that OSTP is active in—or even if you are just a generalist with enthusiasm for any topic—there may be a spot here at OSTP for you this spring. Apply today!

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