What is a Health Data Utility?

The health data utility is a locally governed, public-private resource providing a source of truth for robust clinical and non-clinical data. The benefit to state and other health care system stakeholders: The health data utility can be used to build healthier communities.

To support this work, we have developed the CSRI Health Data Utility Maturity Model.

Some of the efforts to build this model include creating collaborative funding opportunities between public health and state-based health data utilities, providing more definitive language about specific data-sharing use cases, and including interoperability between public health and health care providers as a core tenet of public health modernization efforts.

Specifically, in Colorado, Health First Colorado (the state’s Medicaid program), discovered stark disparities on ethnic and racial lines with vaccine rates. With access to data provided by Contexture, one of our founding organizations, Colorado identified trends within communities and directly addressed health inequities by sharing information about assistance programs among appropriate groups, which is improving outcomes in the short and long run.

Also in Colorado, the nonprofit Health Care Partners Foundation and other health care partners serving county jails are using data to make informed decisions that can improve health outcomes for incarcerated people who are returning to their lives. Similar efforts are occurring around the country, where detention centers have access to health information as part of a medication consistency pilot program.

Three lessons learned about the health data utility model

Within CSRI, there are numerous examples of the ways that HIEs are clarifying and building our roles as health data utilities in our respective health care ecosystems. By leveraging our collective experience, our organizations are seeing growing traction about how to bridge the divide between public health and the broader health care system.

The organizations that form CSRI have learned some lessons along the way.

These include:

  • Successful health data utilities are tapping into and acting upon the policy and political priorities in our states. This work increases health equity and improves health outcomes for communities across the country.
  • Still, there’s no one right policy lever. The right approach is to find the policy levers and priorities that are going to work in each state, which includes political and economic concerns.
  • Advocating for models that build on historic investments that advance collaboration across multiple stakeholder groups by utilizing a locally governed, nonprofit structure with extensible benefits to communities and constituents.
illustration of a government building

What’s next for health data utilities?

Despite HIEs’ successes as health data utilities in various states across the country, there’s a lot of work left to do in order to demonstrate our national role and need for long-term financial support.

For one, the funding models need to change. Specifically, to deliver on the promise of our work as health data utilities, Morgan Honea, CSRI President and Executive Vice President of Contexture, advocates that these organizations should receive ongoing, clear, and sustainable funding through the public health infrastructure and Medicaid programs that already exist. One idea is to create joint public health-health data utility funding opportunities that encourage these partnerships.

In addition, the role of government is incredibly important as our organizations advocate for the health data utility model. Local, state, and federal government entities play an important role in ensuring alignment around public health data governance and expectations about how that data can be shared.

More specifically, the federal government has a pivotal role to play in driving interoperability standards for public health and health care IT systems to ensure that we aren’t simply rebuilding the current system with new investments. In conclusion, in our work as health data utilities, our organizations have a powerful impact on the communities we serve. Essential to our success is support from all levels of government, including long-term resources to support these relationships and activities.

We have developed the CSRI Health Data Utility Maturity Model to support these efforts.

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