Obama to meet with healthcare innovators

{mosads}Carney touted the administration’s moves to encourage the use of electronic health records and to publish government healthcare data, such as hospital prices and readmission rates.

“The president will be talking to leaders in healthcare innovation this evening about how these new, data-powered tools are already making an impact on patient care,” Carney said at a press briefing.

The Obama administration received kudos in May after the Medicare agency released data showing dramatic variations in what hospitals charge for routine procedures.

Healthcare experts believe that the notoriously opaque pricing of U.S. medical care allows providers to charge what they like without consumer pushback.

The data release was part of the wider Health Data Initiative, launched in 2010 by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Institute of Medicine.