“The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the importance of quality data and analytics. Every day, policymakers and public health experts across the United States are testing new methods for data collection and analysis, uncovering critical gaps in our understanding of healthcare delivery and generating real-time solutions to these problems…”
“In particular, my colleagues and I are acutely aware of additional contributions that could be made with the wider availability of comprehensive and timely data on the functioning and capacity of the Nation’s healthcare delivery systems. Our country needs not only to track the Nation’s ongoing response, but also to measure our progress and reliably predict what resources will be needed to effectively prevail over this evolving health emergency…”
“While we are dedicated to using today’s available data to inform our Nation’s COVID-19 response, we join others who have identified knowledge gaps that if filled would improve national, State and local response activities. The Nation cannot afford to address healthcare crises without key datasets that are essential building blocks for saving lives and easing the stresses that we now see in stark relief on our healthcare delivery systems.”
“With these needs in mind, my colleagues and I have begun to articulate a vision for a new AHRQ data resource – an ‘analytics and insights platform’ – that will provide valuable new information to researchers and policymakers at every level of government.”
“We are currently focused on four main resource components: expanding MEPS to build a repository of “demand-side databases” to estimate healthcare delivery needs in public health emergencies; establishing a “supply-side database” to better understand health system capacity; augmenting existing AHRQ datasets with information on social determinants of health (SDoH); and creating and testing a new synthetic database to allow rapid-cycle research and analysis while minimizing risks of privacy concerns…” Read the full article here.
Source: AHRQ’s Signature Data Resources Poised to Inform the Battle against COVID-19 – By Gopal Khanna, June 2, 2020. AHRQ.
