The New SHADAC Data Center
SHADAC has launched its redesigned Data Center that offers improved functionality and broader appeal through an expanded range of topics, data sources, and visualization options. As always, Data Center users can study health insurance coverage using the most current coverage estimates from the American Community Survey (ACS), the Current Population Survey (CPS), and the SHADAC-Enhanced CPS. However, the Data Center now offers the following as well:
New Topics
- Characteristics of the uninsured (e.g., age, sex, family type, income)
- Access to care
- Access to and cost of employer-sponsored insurance
New Data Sources
- Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)
- Medical Expenditure Panel Survey - Insurance Component (MEPS-IC)
New Ways to Display Estimates
- Maps
- Bar Charts
- Trend Lines
Integrating Physical and Behavioral Health: Strategies for Overcoming Legal Barriers to Health Information Exchange
On Wednesday, May 7 from 1:00-2:00 p.m. ET, the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) State Health and Value Strategies will host a webinar that is designed to help state policymakers identify strategies to overcome real and perceived health information privacy barriers to the integration of behavioral and physical health care. Medicaid programs across the country are exploring strategies to better integrate the delivery of physical and behavioral health services. A growing number of Medicaid officials believe that coordinating care across these two historically balkanized sectors of the health care system is critical to improving health outcomes and decreasing costs. However, effective care coordination requires robust data exchange among physical and behavioral health providers and many providers are reluctant to freely share data for fear of violating health information privacy laws. This webinar, featuring Robert Belfort of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and state policymakers with experience integrating physical and behavioral health care in their states, will help participants: (a) understand the legal barriers to sharing behavioral and physical health care information; (b) dispel misconceptions about those barriers; and (c) adopt strategies to reduce actual barriers where they exist. Register today.
Reducing Overuse and Misuse: State Strategies to Improve Quality and Cost of Health Care
RWJF’s State Health Value Strategies will host a second webinar on Tuesday, May 20 from 1:00-2:00 p.m. ET that is based on a January 2014 SHVS issue brief by Megan Burns, Mary Beth Dyer and Michael Bailit. The webinar will focus on actions state purchasers can take with contracted plans, providers, and other engaged purchasers to reduce misuse and overuse of health care services. Neal Kohatsu, MD, MPH, as Medical Director for the California Department of Health Care Services, will react to the webinar presentation, commenting on overuse and misuse from his perspective. The webinar will conclude with a brief question and answer period. Register today.
To learn more about other State Health Value Strategies webinars, click here and check back in the future: https://rwjfevents.webex.com/mw0401l/mywebex/default.do?siteurl=rwjfevents
Fireside Chat Provides Perspective from the White House
In the third and final "fireside chat" of the Public Health Funding Series: Finding Evidence-Based Efficiencies in the Era of Austerity, "The Budget Process: The Role of the White House," Tricia Schmitt, senior program examiner at the Office of Management and Budget, will discuss how she makes budgetary decisions amid fiscal and political constraints, where she turns for evidence, and what knowledge gaps remain.
This informal talk is part of a larger discussion that aims to help the research community provide evidence policymakers can use to improve the public's health and understand how they decide what research to fund.
- Date: Wednesday, May 14
- Time: 3:30-4:00 p.m. ET
- Registration: Free
- Register
