Colorado Health-Care Database Wins Big Foundation Grants

June 24, 2012 | Read Time: 1 minute

Two Colorado foundations have made big grants for a database project to help improve health care in the state.

The Center for Improving Value in Health Care, a Denver charity, is building a database of claims information from all commercial health insurers as well as Medicaid and Medicare. The system will record key pieces of data, such as demographic information about a patient, the diagnosis, the procedure, the stated price of the service, and the negotiated amount the insurer actually paid.

The goal is to analyze the quality and cost of the care that doctors and hospitals provide so customers can make more informed decisions and providers can work to improve their performance, says Phil Kalin, the center’s chief executive.

Eventually, patients will be able to go to a Web site; indicate their insurance carrier, place of residence, and needed procedure, such as hip surgery; and then get information about how much they would pay at different hospitals, along with quality-of-care indicators such as infection rates.

“Any other marketplace in the world has data,” says Mr. Kalin. “That’s how marketplaces work.”

The Colorado Health Foundation awarded $2.5-million for the project, and the Colorado Trust contributed $2-million.

For more information: Go to civhc.org.

About the Author

NICOLE WALLACE

Features Editor

Nicole Wallace is features editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy. She has written about innovation in the nonprofit world, charities’ use of data to improve their work and to boost fundraising, advanced technologies for social good, and hybrid efforts at the intersection of the nonprofit and for-profit sectors, such as social enterprise and impact investing.Nicole spearheaded the Chronicle’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast and reported from India on the role of philanthropy in rebuilding after the South Asian tsunami. She started at the Chronicle in 1996 as an editorial assistant compiling The Nonprofit Handbook.Before joining the Chronicle, Nicole worked at the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs and served in the inaugural class of the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps.A native of Columbia, Pa., she holds a bachelor’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown University.