The Role of Open Data in Healthcare Research

AbstractThe generation and storage of data have dramatically increased worldwide in the last two decades. Computing and networking capabilities combined with openness enhance the potential impact of the accumulated data, offering society an opportunity to drive massive social, political, and economic change. Open data is a recent approach. In summary, open data can be freely used, shared, and built-on by anyone, anywhere, for any purpose. Though health open data are not regularly available, it is estimated that the value of a more effective use of data resources in the US health care sector alone could be worth USD 300 billion annually. To date, Open Government data count more than 10,000 datasets in Italy but only a few concern healthcare. In this chapter, we will try to clarify what open data are and, after having recalled the principles of Open Government, the attention will draw on open data in the health and pharmaceutical context, focusing on the state of the art in Italy and worldwide.KeywordsOpen dataLinked dataOpen government