On June 11, the State Health Research and Policy Interest Group held a one-day meeting in conjunction with AcademyHealth’s Annual Research Meeting. This meeting featured both panel and poster presentations, focusing on state efforts to engage their populations, the types of information available from state data sources, state coverage and access issues, and state roles in delivery system reform.
The day’s first panel, “Engaging State Populations,” addressed research around the technical and adaptive challenges of the ACA for state and local stakeholders, consent issues around health information exchange, and the impact of survey methodology on estimates of cell phone populations.
The second panel, “What Can State Data Sources Tell Us?” focused on various state health data sources, examining the utility of these sources for state policymakers. The different presentations detailed the information available from population surveys, Medicaid administrative data, all-payer claims databases, health plan data reported to insurance regulators, and data pulled from electronic health records.
“State Coverage and Access Issues” were the focus of the day’s third panel, which included presentations detailing Wisconsin’s online portal for Medicaid/CHIP enrollment, the willingness and availability of physicians to see new Medicaid patients, and the impact of tort reform on health care expenditures.
The final panel of the day focused on “State Roles in Delivery System Reform,” and examined state roles in promoting accountable care organizations. State officials from two states – Vermont and Washington – were respondents to the main presentation and described their experiences with various delivery system reform efforts.
The meeting agenda and all panel presentations are available on the State Health Research and Policy Interest Group website.
