Successful health research hinges on the quality of the data used to advance discovery and needed health IT functionality. Electronic health data are increasingly available and can be a significant boon for the medical research community. Coupled with ubiquitous use of consumer and patient health technologies and increasing prevalence of application programming interfaces, or APIs, there is potential to expand existing data sources for research.

Opportunity knocks for NIH researchers, who will be able to leverage clinical data from electronic health record (EHR) systems with increased frequency and consistency. The passage of the 21st Century Cures Act (Cures Act) has charted a path toward increasing access to and interoperability of electronic health information for clinical care. This, in turn, has paved the way to leverage relevant policies, systems, and infrastructure to accelerate research. In parallel, researchers have been challenged to make data from a single research study,