Using Health Data

Working in close partnership with patients, caregivers, researchers, and practitioners, Innovation and Value Initiative and AcademyHealth developed a new framework to recognize the broad health care economic impacts on patients and caregivers and aid researchers in addressing health disparities and creating value for patients and systems.

The winner and honorable mention of AcademyHealth’s 2023 Health Equity DataJam leveraged publicly available datasets to answer pressing questions related to health and health care disparities.

The lack of high quality, accessible national claims data has long been a roadblock to robust Medicaid research and subsequent evidence-based policymaking in the United States. While the release of TAF marked a significant improvement, research faculty with AcademyHealth’s Medicaid Data Learning Network (MDLN) outline important steps that state and federal policy makers can take to improve data quality, accessibility, and usability.

AcademyHealth organizational member Aptive Resources partnered with the Department of Veterans Affairs to better address Veteran suicide through improved data collection, working with subject matter experts, and identifying policy gaps.

Top health data experts held an exclusive conversation with AcademyHealth's organizational members on the status, challenges, and opportunities for stakeholder engagement with the Biden-Harris Administration’s attempt to make health data more equitable.

In its first year, the Medicaid Data Learning Network (MDLN) facilitated expert presentations and collaboration among TAF experts and member research teams by hosting an in-person meeting at AcademyHealth's Annual Research Meeting (ARM) and eight virtual learning sessions. This publication presents a summary of the findings from the first year of the Medicaid Data Learning Network, including key takeaways for the research and policy communities from each learning session.

Through a range of activities, AcademyHealth seeks to advance data equity, support data learning networks, and expand data access. We are also announcing a new call for proposals from Health Data for Action, a signature research program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.