It’s a new year and already some important and positive trends are emerging that should take your notice away from the daily COVID-19 news. Patient leadership and engagement in clinical trials and in economic evaluations is a "must have" and it’s good to see collective action accelerating. Regulators, research funders and publishers must establish the bar for meaningful action and documentation, and also watch for opportunists who market apps and other tech solutions without real investment in authentic patient outreach and involvement. There’s also lots of talk and momentum around measuring social costs to patients, families and caregivers, and embedding such elements in our view of care quality and equity. The path ahead on this issue is complex, but there are a growing number of organizations investing time and resources in this work. Transparency and sharing of learning, best practices and methods will both accelerate and ensure meaningful and sustainable change. Speaking of transparency, it’s about time that a major organization like National Academies focuses on a major roadblock to patient-centered health care: data sharing. The report highlights several case examples of positive change, but note that many of the initiatives remain closed (i.e. private) data repositories and most lack patient involvement and leadership in their conceptualization or governance. Transparent, common-good data sharing has to be the standard and patients have to be co-leaders of change.