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healthyR.data

ANALYTICS
Velocity0.0

R package healthyR.data by spsanderson — release notes from GitHub.

github.com/spsanderson/healthyR.data ↗

From a bundled hospital dataset to a live CMS API client.

r-packagehealthcare-datacmsapi-clienthealthyverse
◆Current state
healthyR.data supplies the data layer for the healthyverse packages. It began by shipping hospital data inside the package and now fetches from CMS and provider endpoints at call time through get_cms_meta_data(), fetch_cms_data(), and their provider counterparts. The most recent release is a single httr2 compatibility fix.
◆Where it's heading
The 2023 release added roughly twenty current_*_data() accessors, one per CMS measure file - a wide but static surface. The 2024 releases replaced that approach with metadata lookup plus generic fetchers, then taught the fetchers to handle CSV, Excel, and ZIP payloads rather than API responses alone. The package's weight has moved from what it ships to what it can retrieve.
◆Prediction
With the fetch layer generalised, the next visible work is more likely record-limit and error handling around httr2 than further per-measure accessors.

◆Recent moves

  1. 1y ago

    httr2 compatibility fix

    A single upstream fix, and a direct consequence of the shift to fetching: once the package became an HTTP client, its release schedule started tracking httr2's.

    View source ↗
  2. 2y ago

    Fetchers handle CSV, Excel, and ZIP, with a record limit

    Hardens the fetch layer introduced two months earlier: non-API file types are handled, URLs are validated before use, and callers can cap how many records come back. This is what turned 1.1.0's mechanism into something usable against the real CMS catalogue.

    View source ↗
  3. 2y ago

    Metadata lookup and generic CMS fetchers replace bundled data

    ⚡ SPARK

    The turn in the package's arc: the twenty hand-written accessors from 2023 are superseded by a metadata-then-fetch pair that resolves what to download at runtime.

    View source ↗
  4. 3y ago

    Twenty CMS measure accessors added

    One function per CMS measure file, added in a single release - comprehensive coverage bought with a maintenance burden the 2024 fetch layer was built to retire.

    View source ↗
  5. 3y ago

    cli, crayon, and rstudioapi dependencies dropped

    Trimming console-formatting dependencies from what was still essentially a data package. No behaviour change for callers.

    View source ↗
  6. 5y ago

    xz compression added to meet CRAN size policy

    A CRAN size constraint on the bundled data - a problem that only exists in the shipped-snapshot model the package later moved away from.

    View source ↗