As self-quantification tools becomes more accessible, we’re able to monitor and collect all that’s coming, going and happening with our bodies. Some are beginning to think of this aggregate data as something of a health code, a repository of personal information which can be opened up to others – an API for your body. Once opened and tapped, others can create tools for manipulating and analyzing the data. Aggregated information that’s presented in the right way can give us and our providers valuable information about our physical status.

Loic Le Meur, the founder of Europe’s biggest Internet conference, raised the dialog here. It’s a fascinating concept and one that plays on the themes of personalization, measurement, and mobility.

This has implications in pediatrics, of course. As a gastroenterologist I can envision a real-time dashboard for kids with conditions like inflammatory bowel disease. Once we’re further along any number of fascinating nano-metrically gathered enteric, metabolic and social data may reflect early flare activity to a parent or provider that an adolescent may be reticent to share. Call it the ‘quantified child‘. Sounds like a job for ImproveCareNow / The C3N Project.

Will this dashboard of data alone be enough to change what we do? That may not be so simple. We’re talkin’ humans here. In the words of Jay Parkinson, “Data doesn’t’ change behavior. Inspiration changes behavior.” But perhaps this will give us information that will begin to inspire better decisions.

What will you do with your body’s API?