Almost two decades ago, inspired by his own frustrations as a prostate cancer patient unable to obtain real world data about which treatment would work best for patients like him, Mr. Kanter developed a vision for a National Health Outcomes Data Sharing Network. Mr. Kanter built the Kanter Family Foundation and later the Health Legacy Partnership (partnering with the Agency for  Healthcare Research and Quality, AHRQ) around effectuating that vision. This vision aims to  empower patients, clinicians, and medical researchers through a transformative health system that learns simply as a byproduct of delivering care, leveraging the power of health IT to learn from the  collective anonymized) longitudinal experiences of millions of patients captured in millions of  electronic health records (EHRs) and other query-able forms of electronic health data.

As many as 4 out of 5 doctors recommendations are anecdotal--not scientifically-based. Congress has passed new laws on health care reform to include billions of dollars to create personal electronic medical records for every individual.  Presidents Bush and Obama have issued statements that all citizens should have electronic medical records from birth to death that can be used to collect  health outcomes research on "what works best on every disease".