Case Study: Data Hub

In Virginia and throughout the country, health providers are challenged with making decisions on care transitions and providing long-term supports and services after neurotrauma. VCU researchers are asked to identify the best continuum of care, from acute to post-acute to community, and decrease the risk for long-term nursing home placement.

They also aim to identify which settings (inpatient rehab facility, skilled nursing facility or home health) can best manage these complex patients and which services and support systems are likely to be effective and affordable.

VCU researchers have had limited access to current, nationally representative data on Medicare, Medicaid and other health payer claims data. The data that VCU did possess was often siloed and unavailable to all schools and colleges doing health services research.

CERSE recruited Amol Karmarkar, Ph.D., a national expert in health services and health policy research, and developed a data hub to provide health services researchers across VCU with:

• Shared access to existing claims data
• Newly purchased, current Medicare and other claims data
• Optimized functionality of the TriNetX system to study VCU Health patient populations, service utilization and outcomes
• Training and expert consultation on using big data to improve health policy and care

The long-term goal of this project is to translate generated evidence into the development of pragmatic clinical trials. These trials would integrate new interventions into clinical workflows and test their effectiveness in real-world settings.