OpenFDA hopes that by making medical device information easier to access and use, it will spark innovation.
In a recent blog post on FDA Voice, officials explained, "by design, openFDA is a research and development project that draws on community involvement. We are active in the openFDA communities on GitHub and StackExchange, and encourage researchers, scientists, and developers to participate in those communities.
They continued, "this API is the latest in a series of openFDA releases that has made publicly available data easier to access. FDA believes that you can use these tools to create innovative products that could help protect and promote public health. In fact, over the last year, there have been dozens of tools created using openFDA resources."
There are, however, security measures in place to make sure the data cannot identify individuals, or "reveal confidential commercial information."
