Projects: Healthcare Management Analytics Lab

Can care management reduce adverse health events and healthcare spending for the high spending – complex needs patients? It is a high stakes question: 1% of patients represent more than a quarter of healthcare spending. Finding a way to reduce healthcare expenditures for these patients offers large savings potential, especially when total health expenditures are currently evaluated at $3.6 trillion. In addition, the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has launched several programs aiming at improving coordination of care. However, whether they lead to actual cost savings and health improvements is still an open debate. Considering the stakes, an answer appears most needed. The goal of this project is to assess the impact of the care management program at the University of Chicago Medicine on patients’ health outcomes and healthcare expenditures. To do so, you will work on extensive data not only from the University of Chicago hospital but also from CMS (Medicare claims data) to get a complete picture of the care received by patients within the Accountable Care Organization, against which you will compare patients in the care management program. Over the course of this project, you will gain firsthand experience in the management and understanding of large and highly detailed healthcare datasets. You will learn to apply statistical models aimed at determining causality – models largely used notably in economics and policy evaluation nowadays – to not only evaluate the program but contribute to potential improvements in the selection process for patients.