Optum changes access to health data for researchers, sparking outcry

A move by Optum Inc. to change longstanding practices for licensing data to academic institutions has sparked an outcry among researchers, who argue the move will make accessing data so costly and difficult that universities will scale back their research programs, Stat reports. Optum notified users that future projects must access insurance claims data through an enclave hosted by another unit of the company. Optum is the data and pharmacy benefits arm of the insurance giant UnitedHealth Group Inc.