Making It Happen on the Ground: Practical Challenges with Administrative Records in the Health Policy Arena

• Activity Number: 164
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 2, 2010 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Government Statistics
• Author(s): Christine S. Cox*+
• Companies: National Center for Health Statistics
• Keywords: administrative records ; federal statistical system ; health policy ; integrated data sets

Abstract

Integration of statistical data and administrative records provides the opportunity to create unique and innovative data resources to answer critically important public policy issues. To best meet this challenge, our Federal Statistical System will need to develop strong collaborative partnerships and the necessary infrastructure to support the development and use of integrated data. This presentation focuses on a proposed pilot project to integrate individual health related information, collected through national health surveys, to Medicaid and Medicare program administration records to support a wide variety of public health policy research goals. Although focused on the critical needs for health policy research, the aims highlighted in this example have broad application to the challenges facing many statistical agencies and the vision of a highly collaborative statistical system.