New information in appeal on open health data

Open State Foundation has brought the case for open health data to the administrative jurisdiction division of the Council of State, the highest general administrative court in the Netherlands.

On October 30, the district court of Amsterdam ruled that the Netherlands Health Authority could keep secret all information related to declared health costs and tariffs of health products. The court upheld the decision made by the Netherlands Health Authority in the FOIA request by Open State Foundation but new information gathered during research makes an appeal to the Council of State necessary. Open State Foundation found not only that data on health costs, including prizes per health provider were earlier published on a government-owned website. Also in 2005 an earlier FOIA request was honoured within a week.

In addition, in its decision the district court of Amsterdam held the opinion that there was no need to ask health providers their views. In the earlier FOIA request, health providers were not asked their view. However, four hospitals have voluntarily provided their views to Open State Foundation and believed that the data asked should be transparant. Finally, the district court of Amsterdam dealt with the database that holds these data as one undivisible document. Open State Foundation believes that the Council of State should look at separate fields of information in the database and decide what data can be made transparant.

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Open health data