CMS launches go-to tool for providers on for disease demographics

Providers now have real-time access to their state’s disease demographic data and can help track the success of patient care thanks to CMS’ new dashboard.

 

The Affordable Care Act-sponsored Medicare Chronic Conditions Dashboard, released March 28, uses Medicare claims data to map out each state’s statistics for chronic illnesses against national averages. That will give providers a better look at their patient populations.

 

“The dashboard offers researchers, physicians, public health professionals and policymakers an easy-to-use tool to get current data on where multiple chronic conditions occur, which services they require and how much Medicare spends helping beneficiaries with multiple chronic conditions,” CMS says in a news release.

 

The new tool – which allows you to search for and analyze data from CMS’ database – is part of HHS’ Initiative on Multiple Chronic Conditions and will provide “new and critical data that can help [physicians] develop better patient-centered approaches to improve health outcomes, lower costs and maximize quality of life,” says Howard Koh, M.D., HHS’ assistant health secretary.