As a retired hospital administrator with a few years of experience, I have advocated for a comprehensive health data portal for years, making a recommendation to the Colorado Commission for Affordable Health Care (CCAHC). See below. The warehouses are bursting with data, but they remain in silos that do not provide the data transparency all our stakeholders have a right to expect.
Comprehensive data portals not only improve data transparency and accountability, but they will help to corroborate key metrics and resolve variations or conflicts. For example, average healthcare expenditures in CMS' report is $6,804 (2014) vs $8,404 in County Health Rankings vs $3,396 for "All Payers" from the APCD at CIVHC. What is the authoritative source? What are the numerators and denominators?
Too much data? It's easy to get lost in the details. Stakeholders should be able to drill down as needed, without losing sight of the big picture. See these guidelines for creating effective data sets in Excel.
Unfortunately, much of our data is years in arears. Concurrent data sets are a function of discipline - with local counties uploading data to states, and states uploading to national data aggregators - on schedule. The older the data, the less informative or actionable.
Most healthcare organizations subscribe to the Triple Aim of improved population health, better quality of care and reduced cost of healthcare. See the IHI Guide below, by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Visit their website for details.
County Health Rankings website also provides a framework for good understanding and effective action within this framework. Also, see the extensive library of Promising Practices at Health Compass of Boulder, developed by the Healthy Communities Institute (Conduent)
Any initiative, such as Laughter Wellness, will require metrics to know if they are effective. Easy access to existing data sets will help.
-- George Swan, MPH Feedback is appreciated, send an emai to iplus007@gmail.com. It's also easy to workshop on Skype or Zoom.
This Google Site can be used as a template for any state or organization that wishes to use the generic pivot tables and add your own files and data sets.
Any organization is welcome to add this portal to their website. Anyone with a data set they would like to add, send it to me and I will create a pivot table for you. Some other large data aggregators worth exploring are the following: