CMS Data & Information Initiative
Niall Brennan, Director
Office of Information Products & Data Analytics
CMS
CMS’s Wealth of Data
● CMS is the largest single payer for health care
services in the US
● 1.3 billion Medicare claims processed annually
● Significant additional data sources on the way

EHRs

Medicare Advantage plan encounter data

Health Insurance Exchange/Medicaid expansion
data
● Receive billions of other “non-claim” data points
● Transition from a passive payer to active
purchaser
● Expected to drive new innovation in health care
● Trusted to protect beneficiary privacy
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Goal: Data as a Core Function of CMS
Without timely and relevant data and
information, CMS cannot:

Define or reward value

Measure and evaluate programs

Identify and spread innovation

Provide providers data they need to
transform health care delivery

Support the health data ecosystem
with CMS data and information
resources to accelerate system
transformation
DATA
CMS is announcing a new office to make data and
information a core function of the agency!
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Office of Information Products & Data Analytics
Policy Actions
Goal 5
Goal 1
Leverage data
and information to
maximize impact
Clarify data use &
dissemination
authorities
Goal 4
Goal 2
Develop more timely
and relevant
information products
Improve data
content &
organization
Goal 3
Improve data
access & user
experience
Data Actions
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Medicare Geographic Variation Trend Data
● Aggregate Medicare data in an easy-to-use format for key
metrics at the State and Hospital Referral Region levels
● Include demographic, spending, utilization, and quality of care
indicators for Medicare across four years (2007-2010)
● Available online on the Institute of Medicine website and will be
available in the Health Indicators Warehouse in July 2012
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Change in ED Visits per 1,000 Beneficiaries
(2007-2010)
National ED Visits per
1,000 Beneficiaries
2007
622
2008
636
2009
645
2010
658
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Change in All-Cause Hospital Readmission Rates
(2007-2010)
National
Readmission Rate
2007
19.2%
2008
19.3%
2009
19.4%
2010
19.2%
2011 (prelim.)
19.0%
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Change in Per-Capita Spending
(2007-2010)
National Per-capita
Spending
2007
$8,586
2008
$9,058
2009
$9,527
2010
$9,732
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Medicare Data Sharing for Performance Measurement
NOW
INSURANCE COMPANIES
FUTURE
MEDICARE?
INSURANCE COMPANIES
MEDICARE?
Qualified
Entity
COMPREHENSIVE
CONSISTENT
FAIR
ACTIONABLE
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Blue Button Data
● VA, DoD and CMS effort to give patients access to their own
data (FEHB plans beginning to also offer blue button)
● 300,000 CMS beneficiaries have downloaded their data to date
● 2012 enhancements

Moving from 1 year of data to 3 years of data

Moving from Parts A and B data to Parts A, B and D data
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Medicare & Medicaid Research Review
CMS’s online, peer-reviewed journal that informs current and future
directions of Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP!
Why authors should publish in
MMRR?
Highly Visible - on CMS web,
indexed in PubMed, reaches key
policy makers
Accessible - research is freely
available to anyone with an internet
connection
No Use Restrictions - in the public
domain, so it can be copied and
used freely
Ease Of Publication - publishes
continuously; online submission &
peer review
Recent Articles:
● “Physician Willingness and Resources to
Serve More Medicaid Patients: Perspectives
from Primary Care Physicians”
● “Noncompliance in the Use of
Cardiovascular Medications in the Medicare
Part D Population”
● “Flu shots and the characteristics of
unvaccinated elderly Medicare beneficiaries”
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Medicare Enrollment Dashboard
● Single location with comprehensive statistics on Medicare
●
enrollment (Parts A, B, and D and Medicare Advantage)
Information at national and state level for recent years and
historical Medicare enrollment trends beginning in 1966
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