As the U.S. Congress takes up the ominous task of finding alternatives to the political football known as the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare,” the question arises:
What is the actual quality of health care in Washington state under the current system, including the expanded Medicaid program and subsidized insurance coverage for so many who have never experienced health care access or insurance before?
Without a metric for quality, how can we compare today’s programs to what may come next, including the devastating possibility that millions may be thrust off of the health care rolls completely and into the abyss?
The Washington Health Alliance has created a Community Checkup Website that attempts to answer the question of health care adequacy, performance and proficiency in our state in a most methodical way.
Results are released to the public and incorporated into the Reports and Scores sections of the healthcare analytics website.
“The new Community Checkup website is a major step forward in translating data into action,” said Nancy A. Giunto, executive director of the Alliance.
“By allowing users to interact with the data in groundbreaking new ways, we hope to advance transparency in Washington state and provide stakeholders with the data they need to move from information to action and thus accelerate the movement toward a health system based on value.”
The Alliance has integrated Tableau technology into the new site, giving users a much greater degree of interactivity and significantly expanding business intelligence capabilities for users. The site, which is best viewed on a desktop or laptop computer, draws upon the Alliance’s robust database of health claims data for four million Washingtonians dating back ten years to display objective results about the quality of care in the state.
Among the site’s new features:
• Data visualizations in both table and graph formats
• Ability to compare results among geographies (county, Accountable Communities of Health) and facilities (medical groups, clinics and hospitals
• Highlights of key issues illustrated by interactive data
• Single dashboard views of measure results across different entities, such as geographies and facilities
• Multi-year data results (2015 and 2016)
• A step-by-step tool to help consumers choose a medical group or hospital that meets their particular needs
In addition, for the first time, the Alliance is making available full results for medical groups and clinics of four or more providers for the entire state.
The site also features detailed results for the Washington State Common Measure Set for Health Care Quality and Cost.
Give your own local community a healthy checkup and see how it compares at http://www.wacommunitycheckup.org/ [24×7]
