Government To Boost Access to Claims Data Under New Project
CMS and HHS are taking steps to expand researchers' access to de-identified Medicare claims data through a partnership with San Francisco-based data analytics firm Archimedes, Clinical Innovation & Technology reports (Pedulli, Clinical Innovation & Technology, 5/3).
Partnership Goals
The partnership aims to speed the development of software that could help improve care and reduce costs through the use of data analytics (Monegain, Healthcare IT News, 5/2).
Archimedes in a statement said that researchers potentially could use the de-identified claims information "to develop research protocols that will ultimately help users make informed decisions based on the data" (Clinical Innovation & Technology, 5/3).
Technology Being Used
The project will use Archimedes' simulation software to help users analyze information from the Medicare Data Entrepreneurs' Synthetic Public Use File, known as DE-SynPUF (Shaw, FierceHealthIT, 5/2).
Archimedes will provide access to the data through an online portal that lets users quickly query and analyze information on outcomes for specific groups of Medicare beneficiaries (Healthcare IT News, 5/2). For example, users could search for Medicare populations based on factors such as their:
- Age;
- Health conditions; and
- Medication use (FierceHealthIT, 5/2).
According to Healthcare IT News, software developers could use the portal to determine whether a particular IT intervention is likely to affect health care costs or outcomes (Healthcare IT News, 5/2).
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