While speaking at an event at the Open Data Institute last week, Sir Tim Berners-Lee called for the UK National Health Service to open more of its data. Sir Tim argued that, “masses of clinical data can be ridiculously useful when you’re trying to do medical research.” In particular, he was referencing the potential utility of the care.data project, an effort to better share patient treatment data that is currently on hold due, at least in part, to privacy concerns.
“You should see which doctors have accessed your data,” he said. “If you create an accountable system on how people use data, then this makes individuals much happier with making their clinical data available. If you make this data available, you can get massive breakthroughs in medicine.”
