open consortium on analysis of healthcare options
JCAHO (pronounced "Jake O.") is the "Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations". They can be visited on the web at http://www.jcaho.org. OCAHO, like pubwan, is a hypothetical organization, which is to say, one that only exists in my imagination, at least for now. It is the "Open Consortium on Analysis of Healthcare Options". The O in OCAHO, like the O in Oaxaca, is pronounced "w". OCAHO rhymes with JCAHO, which is to say it's pronouced like "Waco".
Unlike JCAHO, OCAHO would not run a DataMart®. Instead, it would treat non-aggregate data as the property of the individuals it pertains to (whether or not those individuals are the proximate source of the data). Aggregate data would be released from the mart (market), which is to say released into the public doman. But only that aggregate data which are derived by methods explained to and explicitly agreed to by the owners of the key columns (these correspond to SSN-like numbers on "forms" in the paper or electronic sense) in the raw data tables. Queries released into the public domain would use key fields/columns as links, output columns would be functions strictly independent of key columns. OCAHO's philosophy is that information, like data, wants to be free (or ought to), so it wouldn't have an InfoMart either.
If OCAHO were to host a website, it would probably not segment its own audience. The informational needs of health care organizations and professionals; employers, purchasers and unions; the international community and the general public don't really differ that much from each other. In general, every party prefers more information over less information, all other things being equal.
Please send laime to [email protected] if you are interested the OCAHO concept.