Innovation in Data Dissemination Award 2019

The distinguished Innovation in Data Dissemination Award for 2019 is awarded to the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) in recognition of their partnership with the Indiana Management Performance Hub (MPH) and other state agencies to unlock Medicaid data for the public to inspire innovation in data analytics and population health initiatives at https://hub.mph.in.gov/organization/indiana-family-and-social-services-administration

NAHDO honors Indiana FSSA’s commitment to making State Medicaid data set publicly available for analysis. This access to Medicaid data is critical, but often hard to access. The free and unrestricted availability of timely Indiana Medicaid data yields tremendous value for FSSA and the myriad of health care providers, non-profit organizations, and researchers seeking to improve the quality of care for the 1.5 million Hoosiers covered under the Indiana Medicaid program.

Through the Management Performance Hub, public users can explore and download Medicaid data sets focused on a number of critical health outcomes and policy issues, including emergency department visits, pharmaceutical prescriptions, and the distribution of Medicaid providers across the state. This level of data access makes the data available to a broad array of users, facilitating research about Medicaid that has wide -reaching benefit. NAHDO applauds this initiative in their success of publishing over 70 Medicaid datasets to the public that resulted in approximately 7,500 downloads in 2018. If each of those downloads represented an individual “Access to Public Records Act” request made directly to the agency, FSSA would have required approximately 60,000 staff resource hours. These additional requests would have required approximately 30 full-time staff to fulfill with an annual estimated cost of more than $2 million.

The Indiana Data Hub is maintained by the Management Performance Hub (MPH). MPH provides analytic data in a centralized location that supports a variety of subject matter areas throughout the State Government for a range of analytic solutions tailored to address complex management and policy questions enabling improved outcomes for Hoosiers. The data are housed securely, de-identified, and published in amanner that promotes analysis, collaboration, and innovation