New Federal Data Initiative from HHS

The Department of Health and Human Services announced a new data management initiative during the Health Data Initiative Forum III, also called “Datapalooza,” held last week in Washington.


The Department of Health and Human Services announced a new data management initiative during the Health Data Initiative Forum III, also called “Datapalooza,” held last week in Washington.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has created the Office of Information Products and Data Analysis to guide the agency as it moves from fee-for-service to a value-based care payment model. The office is responsible for making the development, management, use and dissemination of data and other information resources a core function of CMS.

Current CMS data initiatives being moved to the new office include the Chronic Condition Warehouse, Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey, Medicaid Analytic Extract, Research Data Assistance Center, Medicare Data Sharing for Performance Measurement Program, Hospital Referral Region and Medicare “Blue Button.”

New data and information products released at the forum include:

* Medicare Geographic Variation Trend Data, a set of data from nearly five billion Medicare claims from 2007 through 2010;

* Medicare Enrollment Dashboard, offering comprehensive statistics on enrollment in Medicare Parts A, B, D and Medicare Advantage, as well as national and state enrollment patterns;

* Medicare & Medicaid Research Review, a new peer-reviewed online journal; and

* CMS Data Navigator, a Web-based tool to quickly connect researchers, policy makers and the public to needed data resources.

More information is available here.