I believe that as public servants, we have a shared goal - to deliver to Americans the service they deserve and expect.
— Todd Park
Not only is it possible to do lean startup in federal government, but it's the most effective way to drive change in the federal government.
It turns out that in the federal government, there are a lot of innovators.
I was not a project manager who was managing and executing the day-to-day operational work of building HealthCare.gov. I didn't have the kind of comprehensive, detailed, deep knowledge of that project that a manager would have.
I'm an appointee of President Obama.
We, as citizens, are the true owners of government.
My job is to be tech entrepreneur-in-residence at the White House.
Supported by digital data, new data-driven tools, and payment policies that reward improving the quality and value of care, doctors, hospitals, patients, and entrepreneurs across the nation are demonstrating that smarter, better, more accessible, and more proactive care is the best way to improve quality and control health care costs.
Geeks are a critical driver of America's innovation ecosystem, from the entrepreneurs launching startups in Silicon Valley to the scientists experimenting in university research labs to the whiz kids building gadgets in their parents' garages.
Today's advanced STEM graduate could be tomorrow's world-class, world-changing scientist.
We know there is real interest from the American public in having easy access to the new, affordable choices in the Health Insurance Marketplace.
I basically apply with my teams the lean startup principles I used in the private sector - go into Silicon Valley mode, work at startup speed, and attack, doing things in short amounts of time with extremely limited resources.
When I was in the private sector, one characteristic that differentiated the best entrepreneurs from the others was that they were not in it for the stock options, but for a mission - to deliver something that was helpful... Every entrepreneurial journey, it turns out, is like this.
How do you deliver the best possible and affordable health care to maximize health?
There's a project that I started at HHS called the Health Data Initiative. The whole idea was to take a page from what the government had done to make weather data and GPS available back in the day.
Government is truly beginning to embrace the power of innovation for the people and by the people, the idea that if government collaborates openly with and unleashes the ingenuity of the public, it will get much more done, much faster and at much lower cost than if government acted alone.
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.
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.
America is full of geeks - and that's a really good thing.
Unfortunately, the experience on HealthCare.gov has been highly frustrating for many Americans. These problems are unacceptable.
Our job as leaders is to find those innovators and release their mojo - lean startup-style - to serve the American people better.
I look forward to doing everything I can in my new role to help bring more and more of the best talent and best ideas from Silicon Valley and across the nation into government.
A kid never listens to what his parents tell him to do. The parents actually act as an example of what their kids themselves do.
I take a lean-startup approach: creating agile, interdisciplinary teams that get the minimum viable product to market as soon as possible. It's my job to be entrepreneur-in-residence, an internal change agent.
When I was 24, I co-founded a company called Athenahealth which built the first Web-based software and back-office service suite for doctors' offices.
Catalyzed by the Recovery Act, adoption of electronic health records is increasing dramatically.
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.
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.
