AHCCCS quietly launched a couple of useful accountability tools last week that can also be used for research: their new Emergency Department Visits and Inpatient Admissions Dashboards. Both data sets are populated with deidentified claims information among Medicaid members in AZ.
The Emergency Department Visits Dashboard allows users to explore and interact with AHCCCS member data pertaining to emergency department utilization. The data is broken down by ED Utilization, Demographic Comparison, and Primary Diagnoses.
The Hospital Inpatient Admissions Dashboard displays AHCCCS member data pertaining to hospital inpatient admissions. The dashboard allows users to explore and interact with the data in a more insightful and visual way, which better communicates trends and important information. This dashboard is broken down by Inpatient Admissions, Demographic Comparison, Primary Diagnoses, and Length of Stay.
So, why is this a big deal? For starters, transparency! These dashboards are a win for anyone who cares about where and how healthcare resources are being used. But remember – these are just dashboards… they don’t provide the kind of detailed data that researchers would need to do detailed analyses – but they do provide bottom-line trend data.
