Publications

Under state law, CHIA maintains databases of patient encounters with acute care hospitals. Collectively known as Case Mix, the databases capture each inpatient admission, emergency department visit, and outpatient observation stay and includes the medical reason for the visit, procedures and services provided, charges incurred, and duration of the visit, as well as patient demographics.

CHIA's latest interactive dashboards on emergency department (ED) visits and hospital inpatient discharge data (HIDD). show trends from October 2018 – June 2023.

This issue of DataMatters focuses on primary care expenditures in Massachusetts. Investments in primary care can influence patient outcomes and are often associated with lower health care costs and higher quality care.

The “Data User Profile” section centers on a Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School publication, Neighborhood Poverty and Distance to Pediatric Hospital Care. Their research used CHIA’s Case Mix data to discover differences in admissions between children from advantaged neighborhoods and disadvantaged neighborhoods.

You can also see upcoming events related to health care as well as some of CHIA's highlighted job opportunities.

The Quality Measure Catalog Dashboard presents information about the quality measures employed in global budget contracts between health plans and Massachusetts provider organizations, and how those measures compare to the Aligned Measure Set recommended by the Massachusetts Quality Measure Alignment Taskforce.

These results help policymakers, health care providers, payers, and other industry leaders in identifying opportunities for improvement and encouraging accountability across the payer and provider community.

CHIA has published its inaugural report on pediatric readmissions in Massachusetts acute care hospitals.This report presents rates by patient demographics, payer type, and diagnoses, in addition to risk-adjusted rates by acute care hospitals and hospital types for state fiscal years (SFY) 2017 through 2022

This report is part CHIA’s broader effort to track readmissions in the state of Massachusetts which also includes the analysis of adult readmissions in acute care hospitals, behavioral health readmissions, and hospital-specific profiles which provide readmissions statistics for each hospital.

This series of reports provides in-depth readmissions information for each Massachusetts acute care hospital. This edition includes interactive graphics which provide a deeper look into each hospital, as well as allowing for comparisons between hospitals or at the statewide level.

Each report contains information including risk­ standardized readmission rates, readmission rates by discharge setting and diagnoses with the highest numbers and rates.

Primary care comprises an array of vital services, that can meaningfully shape patient outcomes and is foundational to a well-performing health care system. However, comprehensive data on expenditures for these services has been limited. As part of its efforts to inform policy initiatives and promote delivery system reforms and investment in primary care, CHIA collects data on payments made by health plans to health care providers delivering primary care services.

This report focuses on spending for primary care services for members enrolled in private commercial, Medicaid MCO/ACO-A, and Medicare Advantage plans for calendar year (CY) 2021.

CHIA reports both annually and quarterly on the financial performance of Massachusetts acute care hospitals, associated hospital health systems, and affiliated physician organizations. Our latest data includes quarterly data through June 30, 2023 and annual data through hospital fiscal year 2022.

Information includes trends in profitability, liquidity, and solvency and also compares a hospital’s individual performance to its peer cohort. Acute hospitals are grouped into cohorts of Academic Medical Centers (AMCs,) Teaching hospitals, Community hospitals and Community-High Public Payer Hospitals (HPP)

This issue of DataMatters focuses on the HFY 2022 Annual Hospital and Health System Financial Performance Report and its key findings.

In this issue's “Data User Profile” section, the Health Policy Commission (HPC) walks through their use of CHIA data in the development of their 2023 Health Care Cost Trends Report. CHIA is proud to be part of the process for the tenth year, as the HPC pulls together policy recommendations for Massachusetts policymakers and legislators.

You can also see upcoming events related to health care and/or data that may be of interest to you.

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. The latest edition covers the period between March 2021 and March 2023 and includes breakouts by payers and product types in private commercial and public market sectors.

Enrollment Trends reporting includes an interactive dashboard, a detailed databook, and technical appendix. Coverage is defined by unique Massachusetts residents with primary, medical membership in the 12 largest commercial payers, MassHealth (Medicaid), or Medicare.

Hospital Utilization in Massachusetts: An Assessment by Race & Ethnicity (SFY 2021) focuses on differences in acute care utilization by race and ethnicity in Massachusetts. Measures of acute care hospital utilization are often used to assess hospital quality and performance, monitor changing demand for acute care services, and estimate the overall health and disease burden of the population.

This reporting includes an initial examination of utilization patterns for patients by racial and ethnic groups across acute care settings, providing a more comprehensive look than previously reported in the Commonwealth.

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

In August 2023, CHIA published relative price results with data through CY 2021 for Massachusetts hospitals and physician groups. CHIA also produced an interactive  dashboard which enables users to explore this data in more detail. 

Two things distinguish CHIA in the pursuit of improving the Massachusetts health care system: our public-interest perspective, and our unique data sets. CHIA's data sets are unique because as the state agency responsible for a number of health care statistics, we have the ability to collect information necessary to fulfill this responsibility.

The July 2023 issue of DataMatters highlights hospital data used to produce the Massachusetts Quarterly Hospital Financial Performance Report and our latest Hospital Health System Profiles publication. 

Hospital Health System 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 their parent organizations. The report also includes an interactive dashboard.

CHIA is uniquely positioned to collect and share data that establishes the factual foundation for health policy development and performance measurement. DataMatters, CHIA's newsletter, shares our recent reporting highlights and puts our data into a broader context.

The May 2023 issue highlights the construction of our recent Hospital Profiles as well as new interactive dashboards featuring HIDD and EDD Case Mix data. 

CHIA's Emergency Department dashboard offers insights into emergency department (ED) utilization in Massachusetts. The dashboard encompasses:

• Statewide Utilization
• Utilization by Hospital
• Visit Characteristics
• Diagnoses
• Behavioral Health
• COVID-19

Massachusetts Hospital Profiles provide information on acute and non-acute hospitals based on hospital characteristics, financial performance, services, payer mix, utilization trends, and cost trends over a five-year period through HFY 2021. These newly designed profiles allow comparison against statewide, regional, or peer cohorts for each measure.

The profiles are accompanied by a dashboard for all acute hospitals, allowing users to filter results by individual hospital, hospital type, and hospital health system.

This new research brief explores the connection between health insurance coverage rates and immigration and citizenship status. Prior research indicates that citizenship and immigration status are associated with health outcomes and inequities. Correlations between immigration and citizenship status and rates of health insurance coverage may be one contributing factor to such health inequities.

As the foreign-born population in Massachusetts continues to increase, improved access to information on disparities in health insurance coverage rates by immigration and citizenship status may help reduce these gaps.

A new special online supplement to the Annual Report explores utilization trends and the continued strain on the Massachusetts health care system, the emergence of new COVID-19 treatments and testing, and the adoption of telehealth as an essential part of the delivery system. 

These data visualizations put some of the report’s key themes and findings into a more qualitative context.

This issue of DataMatters has an opening message from CHIA's new Executive Director Lauren Peters. Also highlighted, CHIA's new interactive Hospital and Health System Financial Dashboard.

The Data User Profile section dives into how CHIA produces mandated benefit reviews using the MA APCD, along with other data sources. CHIA regularly evaluates the efficacy and cost impact of health benefit mandate bills at the request of the Massachusetts Legislature.

CHIA, in collaboration with Massachusetts Health Quality Partners (MHQP), has published Massachusetts’ first-ever dashboard of metrics to monitor the health of the primary care system in the Commonwealth. The dashboard measures: 

• Finance
• Capacity
• Performance
• Equity

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.

This issue 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.