The Kansas Health Policy Authority has awarded a $4 million contract for the creation of a virtual data warehouse that will allow the authority to examine patterns of health care and costs in the state, reports Government Health IT.
The warehouse, known as the Data Analytic Interface, will include data from the state’s Medicaid Management Information System, the state employees health benefits program, the Kansas Health Insurance Information System and the state workers compensation program. These programs cover about 1 million of the state’s 2.7 million residents. The contract was awarded to to Thomson-Reuters.
Information gleaned from the aggregated data will help the authority adopt data-driven health care policies. The warehouse will have a user-friendly interface so that a wide range of users inside and outside the authority can obtain data for analysis, and will include value-added tools such as disease episode grouper or built-in calculations for quality measures.
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will pay for more than two-thirds of the cost of the three-year contract. The authority expects the warehouse to be ready for use in about a year.
