An Approach to Open Data in Health and its Current Status in Colombia Uma aproximação aos Dados Abertos em Saúde e seu atual estado na Colômbia Un Acercamiento a datos abiertos en salud y su estado actual en Colombia

The  use  of  open  data  is  a  strategy  that  promotes  transparency  and  vi-sibility  of  the  government  entities  management  in  order  to  providing  timely  and  reliable  data  to  the  different  sectors  for  informed  decision  making. Countries like the United States and the United Kingdom have defined f rameworks that define a unified strategy for open data on heal-th, called Open Health Data (OHD); also the World Health Organization (WHO)  proposes  a  network  called  Health  Metrics  Network  (HMN),  to  support  countries  in  their  purpose  of  improving  global  health  through  the strengthening of health information systems. In Colombia, the open data strategy which aims to support online government initiatives, has been strengthening and maturing. However, there are still ongoing cha-llenges that must be faced in strengthening health open data, such as: culture change of the organisms responsible for the data to share, whe-re the key factor is citizenship training; territorial entities empowerment that  allows  them  to  understand  and  visualize  this  approach’s  potential,  guidelines implementation on the individual data anonymization to sa-tisfy the regulations in terms of information privacy and the stimulation of the use of open data by ICT professionals for new products and servi-ces creation, guaranteeing a true government open data impact in the country. A proposal is made for an operational model that illustrates the way in which all actors and information systems can be articulated in a health information systems ecosystem that is integrated with the open data catalog.