Beyond Better Data:
What Actually Changes Health Care?
15 Years After Better Data for Better Care, a New Book Examines What Actually Changes Health Care
At a time when health care is generating unprecedented volumes of information, Beyond Better Data challenges readers to look beyond data collection and focus on what truly drives meaningful change: disciplined thinking, leadership, collaboration, and responsible innovation.
For more than a decade, TLI's guiding principle has been Better Data. Better Care. Now Bill Oldham asks the harder question that comes next.
Fifteen years after Transforming Health Care: Better Data for Better Care helped shape the national conversation around health information technology, the field has invested billions in systems designed to collect, organize, and transmit information. Beyond Better Data reflects the principles that have guided TLI since its founding: intellectual curiosity, scientific rigor, partnership across disciplines, and a relentless commitment to improving lives through better ideas and better information. The real work is human. The real work is now.
Why has health care invested billions in technology while meaningful improvement in care remains so difficult to achieve?
Fifteen years after Transforming Health Care: Better Data for Better Care, Bill Oldham revisits that question with a deeper and more urgent perspective shaped by real-world experience across federal health systems, national data initiatives, and patient-centered outcomes registries.
This book argues that technology alone does not transform healthcare—alignment does.
Through compelling case studies and deeply human insight, we explore how data can move beyond accumulation to become a tool for better decisions, stronger collaboration, and improved patient outcomes. Challenging conventional thinking around interoperability, standardization, and value-based care, Bill Oldham presents a practical vision for healthcare systems built on trust, purpose, and actionable intelligence.
Timely, provocative, and grounded in experience, this book is essential reading for healthcare leaders, policymakers, innovators, and anyone working to shape the future of care.
Hear from the author
Bill Oldham introduces Beyond Better Data: why he wrote it, what has changed, and what the health care field must do now.
Bill Oldham
What leaders are saying
“Better data is essential, but data alone doesn't transform healthcare. People do. Leadership does. Collaboration does. The real challenge is turning information into action that meaningfully improves lives.”
“Bill has spent his career asking difficult questions and bringing together diverse perspectives to solve them. Beyond Better Data captures not only his experience but also the philosophy that has shaped TLI's work: innovation should always be purposeful, evidence-informed, and focused on improving patient outcomes.”
Across the case studies in this book, you see that the most resilient systems are those that tie data directly to decisions, adapt over time, and remain anchored to a clearly defined purpose.
This book highlights that clinical data, while necessary, is not sufficient to fully assess the results of medical treatments. The efforts of the TLI over these past years have shown that there are additional ways of enhancing medical knowledge which can lead to an improved understanding and better health outcomes for both patients and their families.
Beyond Better Data makes one truth unmistakable: healthcare will not be transformed by technology or data volume alone. Lasting progress comes from aligning data with real patient care, turning information into insight, and building trust through outcomes that are measurable and meaningful.
Available June 26, 2026
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