As part of its work helping clients such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) modernize their information technology and data analytics, Mathematica recently released new information and enhancements to DQ Atlas. These updates improve the accessibility of national Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) data. As a trusted partner to CMS, Mathematica continuously creates the Transformed Medicaid Statistical Information System (T-MSIS) Analytic Files (TAF), a series of data sets optimized for analytics. Available as research identifiable files (RIFs), TAF contains beneficiary- and service-level data that are available with an approved Data Use Agreement. CMS recently released updated versions of the 2014–2016 TAF RIF to reflect state improvements to data for those years. DQ Atlas has incorporated those improvements in its updated data quality information. In addition, DQ Atlas now provides information about the quality of preliminary 2019 TAF RIF data recently released by CMS. New tool functionality also enables users to select between different versions of the same year of data when investigating available data quality information.
“We’re proud to support CMS in creating timely TAF data and information about data quality. The enhancements to DQ Atlas accelerate end users’ ability to assess data quality issues as they plan their research and before investing in analytical work,” said Carol Irvin, a senior fellow at Mathematica who directs the ambitious T-MSIS data analytics effort funded by CMS. “We now have six years and several versions of data quality information available to end users. We advanced the timeliness of DQ Atlas when we published information about the quality of the 2019 TAF RIF data ahead of public release.”
Mathematica developed DQ Atlas in partnership with CMS to help stakeholders—including CMS staff, policymakers, analysts, researchers, and other users of administrative data—conduct insightful, methodologically sound analyses of Medicaid and CHIP. DQ Atlas is an interactive, web-based tool that gives users accurate, extensive information on the quality of program data on enrollment, claims, expenditures, and service use. It builds on Mathematica’s efforts to transform the delivery and quality of health care for low-income individuals and families, people with disabilities, and older Americans. In a recent blog post, CMS recognized the tool’s potential to “revolutionize” stakeholders’ ability to “examine the usability of Medicaid and CHIP data and foster a broader community of researchers interested in understanding one of the nation’s largest and most critical insurance programs.”