2022 Publications

CHIA has published the latest report in its series providing analyses and trends sourced from the Massachusetts Acute Hospital Case Mix Database. The Massachusetts Acute Care Hospital Inpatient Discharge Data (FFY 2016-2021) report presents key measures of inpatient utilization overall and by hospital, patient, and discharge characteristics from FFY 2016 to FFY 2021.

This report establishes an important baseline of inpatient utilization that can be used for public health initiatives, analyses of preventable hospitalizations and readmissions, and comparative cost and outcomes research.

CHIA has published a new research brief on emergency department use, Black and Hispanic Residents Report Higher Likelihood of Potential Reliance on the Emergency Department for Health Care than White Residents in the Commonwealth.

Frequent utilization of the emergency departments (ED) for non-emergent conditions can strain health care systems, impacting both hospitals and patients. While Massachusetts has made significant progress to minimize barriers to accessing and affording care, substantial disparities persist among certain sub-populations.

The November 2022 issues of DataMatters highlights the new research brief exploring the role of race/ethnicity in emergency department utilization.

This issue's Data User Profile explores the integration of three different databases, including CHIA's Case Mix data, into a single statewide ischemic stroke database in order to monitor stroke outcomes. The Publications and Data Releases and Upcoming Events sections focus on recently released reports  and events of interest to the local health data community. 

CHIA's report on behavioral health and readmissions found that there was a high prevalence of behavioral health comorbidities among hospitalized adults in Massachusetts acute care hospitals. Readmission rates for patients with behavioral health comorbidities were nearly twice the rates for patients without any behavioral health comorbidity.

This report also includes analysis of the prevalence, average length of stay, and readmission rates among patients with behavioral health comorbidities during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This issue of DataMatters highlights the quarterly financial performance of Massachusetts hospitals and health systems. This edition’s “Data User Profile” explores Medicaid expansion in Massachusetts and changes to coverage continuity for child enrollees entering young adulthood.  

Also featured, CHIA's first-ever report on primary care and behavioral health expenditures. To better understand the Commonwealth’s investments in primary care and behavioral health, CHIA launched a new reporting series that examines Massachusetts spending on these services.

Primary care and behavioral health care (PCBH) comprise an array of vital services that can meaningfully shape patient outcomes and are often associated with lower health care costs and higher quality.

CHIA has produced an interactive expenditures dashboard as part of this reporting series on these health care expenditures. This report series and dashboard will support future policy initiatives and providing insight into the Commonwealth’s investment in primary care and behavioral health.

CHIA reports on relative price to examine provider price variation in the Massachusetts commercial market. Relative Price (RP) facilitates comparison of average provider prices, accounting for differences in patient acuity, the types of services providers deliver to patients, and the different insurance product types that payers offer to their members.

CHIA has also produced an an interactive Tableau dashboard which includes data on provider-specific S-RP results and payer-specific S-RP results.

Twice per year, CHIA updates its detailed Enrollment Trends analysis for the most recent two-year period to give researchers and policymakers insight into the market. This newest edition covers the period between March 2020 and March 2022 and includes breakouts by payers and product types in private commercial and public market sectors.

CHIA’s bi-annual Enrollment Trends reporting includes an interactive dashboard, a detailed databook, and technical appendix.

DataMatters, helps you find out more about our corner of the Massachusetts health data world.

The July 2022 issue includes news about CHIA's ongoing work to monitor health care quality in the Commonwealth and how CHIA data was used to examine endoscopy outcomes between hospital outpatient departments and ambulatory surgery centers.

You can also catch up on all of CHIA's recent research and a list of important upcoming health care-related events.

As part of CHIA’s ongoing work to monitor health care quality in the Commonwealth, A Focus on Provider Quality: Selected Clinical Measures, 2018 and 2020 examines performance across a subset of metrics from the NCQA Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS®).

The selected measures cross several domains of care delivered or overseen by primary care providers including diagnostic care, behavioral health, chronic condition care, mental health, pediatric and adolescent care and screening and prevention.

The Massachusetts Health Insurance Survey (MHIS) provides valuable information on health insurance coverage, health care access and use, and health care affordability for Massachusetts residents. While Massachusetts residents continue to have a high rate of insurance coverage, access and affordability issues persist across all groups regardless of age, gender, race, health status, or family income.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 MHIS included new questions to provide data on the impacts of the pandemic on residents’ ability to obtain timely and affordable health care, as well as changes in employment, which may affect health insurance coverage, health risk, and ability to pay for health care.

The 2021 Massachusetts Employer Survey (MES) is a biennial survey that asks a representative sample of Massachusetts employers to share their experiences and challenges in offering health insurance and related benefits to their employees.

The MES provides valuable insight on the employer health insurance market, including information on employer health insurance offerings, employee take-up rates, cost-sharing, plan characteristics, and employer decision making. These summary results provide key insights on how the pandemic affected workplace health benefits during a period of challenge and recovery for many businesses.

This DataMatters highlights the second installment of a new CHIA research series on health care equity issues in Massachusetts. This installment, Health Insurance Coverage and Care in Massachusetts, 2015-2019: A Baseline Assessment of Gaps by Geographic Region documents health insurance coverage, access, utilization, and affordability during the period leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic across eight health service regions in Massachusetts.

This issue’s “Data User Profile” profiles  data showing the impact of housing policy on health care use.

CHIA's new report on hospital and health system financial performance for fiscal year (FY) 2021 provides a view of profitability, liquidity, and solvency for a majority of Massachusetts acute hospitals (47 of 61), as well as hospital health systems (21 of 25) in FY 2021.

Overall acute hospital profitability in FY 2021, as measured by the median total margin, was 6.0%, an increase of 2.9 percentage points in comparison to the prior fiscal year. The statewide median operating margin was 1.2%, a decrease of 0.1 percentage points compared to FY 2020.

Health Insurance Coverage and Care in Massachusetts, 2015-2019: A Baseline Assessment of Gaps by Region, provides a baseline assessment of gaps in health insurance coverage, access, utilization, and affordability in the period leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic across eight regions in Massachusetts.

To advance the goal of health care equity in Massachusetts, it is important to examine how geographic differences impact residents’ health insurance coverage and access to care in the Commonwealth.

Massachusetts Hospital Profiles provide descriptive and comparative information on acute and non-acute hospitals based on hospital characteristics, services, payer mix, utilization trends, cost trends, financial performance, and quality over a five-year period.

Hospital Health System (HHS) profiles provide a summary of financial performance and relative size of component entities for the hospital health system and their affiliated acute hospitals, physician organizations, and health plans. This report highlights the importance of differentiating the financial health and status of acute care hospitals from the parent organizations.

This DataMatters highlights CHIA’s Annual Report on the Performance of the Massachusetts Health Care System and the myriad of Massachusetts health costs and spending topics it covers - including Total Health Care Expenditures.

This issue’s “Data User Profile” features the Health Policy Commission's publication that combined two CHIA data sources – APCD-based birth episode data and quality data produced by the Leapfrog Group and compiled by CHIA in our Focus on Provider Quality report – along with Department of Public Health birth record data. The profile looks at research into midwife care and associated spending and quality outcomes in Massachusetts hospitals.

Unplanned hospital readmissions are a costly and potentially preventable problem that impacts patient health and experience of care both nationally and in Massachusetts. Readmissions are a central issue in efforts to improve health care quality and reduce costs.

Hospital-Wide Adult All-Payer Readmissions in Massachusetts: SFY 2011-2020 is the seventh in CHIA’s annual series of all-payer readmission reports and updates previous reports. This report provides a significant update to the methodology CHIA uses to compare hospital readmission rates.

The Annual Report on the Performance of the Massachusetts Health Care System includes a final calculation of Total Health Care Expenditures (THCE) for 2020. THCE is a measure of total statewide health care spending in the Commonwealth.

The report includes information from public and private sources related to specific health care expenditures for Massachusetts residents, quality of care in the Commonwealth compared to national performance, enrollment and coverage trends, premiums and member cost-sharing and payer use of funds as well as hospital and nursing facility financial and utilization trends.

In the January edition, CHIA takes on the hot topic of health equity. CHIA's newly-published Health Insurance Coverage and Care in Massachusetts, 2015-2019: A Baseline Assessment of Gaps by Age, Race and Ethnicity, and Income focuses on several factors as measured by the agency's Massachusetts Health Insurance Survey.

Physical ability (or disability) status can also determine whether two people receive the same health care – as documented by findings from a University of Michigan-Brandeis University team whose  research is featured in our "Data User Profile." The team used CHIA's All-Payer Claims Database (APCD) to explore whether deaf or hard-of-hearing individuals received comparable contraceptive care.

Under state law, CHIA maintains a database of stay-level encounters with acute care hospitals going back more than 20 years.

This new report provides insight into observation department visits in all acute care hospitals in Massachusetts over a four-year period, from FFY 2016 to FFY 2019 (October 1, 2015 to September 30, 2019). This report presents key measures of observation department utilization overall and by hospital, patient demographic, and visit characteristics and is also accompanied by a databook and technical appendix.

In accordance with M.G.L. c.12C §24 the Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA), in conjunction with MassHealth, completed a biennial study on the provision of continuous skilled nursing (CSN) services for both pediatric and adult populations in the Commonwealth.