New Dashboards Help State Officials Assess Key Healthcare Cost Drivers

Connecticut is seeking to lower growth in its healthcare spending to make care more affordable for its residents. To help the state meet this goal, Mathematica developed new interactive online dashboards that give state officials a better view into the factors driving growth in healthcare costs.

“Increased transparency into what is causing healthcare costs to climb can inform and enhance decisions about how best to address them,” said Josh Baker, vice president of the state and local government division at Mathematica. “With these dashboards, health decision makers in Connecticut will have easy access to the data and insights they need to effectively track healthcare costs and take steps to contain excess spending.”

As Connecticut and a rising number of other states set healthcare cost-growth targets, Mathematica’s analytics expertise and data visualization tools can inform their approaches to easing the burden of these costs.

The dashboards, developed for Connecticut’s Office of Health Strategy (OHS), summarize data from the state’s All-Payer Claims Database. These tools inform state policymakers and other interested parties about cost drivers in key areas, helping them answer questions about increases in spending and pursue solutions for more affordable and accessible healthcare:

• Healthcare Cost Drivers Dashboard—This tool explores healthcare utilization and provides an overview of spending trends in Connecticut to help the state compare its performance with its cost-growth targets.
• Hospital Dashboard—This dashboard dives into commercially insured utilization and spending at Connecticut hospitals, shedding light on which hospitals and services are driving costs to inform data-driven decisions on how to slow that growth.
• Retail Pharmacy Dashboard—This tool enables users to drill down into specific data on prescription drug utilization and spending to analyze patterns and understand drivers of pharmacy cost growth in the commercial, Medicaid, and Medicare Advantage markets.

“Connecticut’s OHS advances data-driven healthcare policy solutions,” said Wendy Fuchs, director of communications at Connecticut OHS. “Our colleagues at Mathematica share our commitment to data and methodological transparency. With their help, we have significantly expanded access to data on cost, spending, and utilization patterns for consumers, providers, advocates, payers, pharmaceutical companies, and elected officials.”

Discover more about Mathematica’s work with state and local partners, and learn how our advanced analytics and advisory services can aid decision making to move you from inquiry to insights.