New GIS Visualization: The Inpatient Hospital Costs Explorer

Today we are at the Esri Health Conference in Cambridge, Mass., presenting the Inpatient (IP) Hospital Costs Explorer. The IP Hospital Costs Explorer, one of our newest visualizations, lets users compare US hospitals on two measures:

• Price
• Quality

The IP Hospital Costs Explorer combines two data sets: Medicare Provider Charge Data (Inpatient), which was just released in May, and Hospital Compare Patient Survey Data (from Medicare.gov). Patients, their families and caregivers, and clinicians can use the Explorer to make an informed decision about which hospital may provide the best care experience.

Users begin by choosing a geographic area. (The version shown has selected indicators for Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana.) A green circle indicates hospitals with low costs, yellow indicates hospitals with moderate costs, and red indicates hospitals with high costs.

The Inpatient (IP) Hospital Costs Explorer showing hospitals with low (green),
medium (yellow), and high (red) costs for the top 100 Medicare diagnosis-related groups.

When users click one of the circles, flyout menus appear that give more detail about the cost of specific covered charges. (The data set includes selected indicators from the 100 most common Medicare DRGs.) There is also a flyout menu that shows patient satisfaction survey results. This is particularly helpful when costs are similar between two hospitals.

Flyout menus give additional detail about hospital costs and patient satisfaction survey results for each hospital.

The IP Hospital Costs Explorer also includes the Medicare Data Portal, which presents data from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS) Geographic Variation database and the Chronic Conditions warehouse at the hospital referral region (HRR) level. Users can visualize the data through maps, graphs, and charts, and can also examine the relationship between two indicators using comparison tools.

The Medicare Data Portal, showing the prevalence of Alzheimer's Disease by hospital referral region.
The Columbus, Ohio, hospital referral region is highlighted.

Learn more about the IP Hospital Costs Explorer and other HealthLandscape GIS visualizations by attending one of our free live webinars:

Visualizing Data with HealthLandscape

Overview of all of our data visualization tools, including the Site Performance Explorer
Tuesday, October 22, 2:00 pm ET

Introduction to HealthLandscape

In-depth instruction on using HealthLandscape, our free online mapping tool and data library
Tuesday, October 29, 2:00 pm ET

The Community Data Portal

In-depth demonstration of our award-winning data dissemination tool
Thursday, November 7, 2:00 pm EST

New Data: CMS County-Level Chronic Conditions

Map showing the prevalence of diabetes among the
Medicare population by county.

 New data available in HealthLandscape!

Last month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released new data about Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries who have chronic conditions. This data set is now available in HealthLandscape's Community HealthView data library.

Threshold map showing counties where diabetes prevalance
among the Medicare population exceeds 30 percent.

This data set tracks 15 chronic conditions and lists their prevalence by county:

• Alzheimer's disease, related disorders, or senile dementia
• Arthritis (including rheumatoid and osteoarthritis)
• Asthma
• Atrial fibrillation
• Cancer (breast, colorectal, lung, and prostate)
• Chronic kidney disease
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
• Depression
• Diabetes (excluding diabetic conditions
  related to pregnancy)
• Heart failure
• High cholesterol (hyperlipidemia)
• High blood pressure (hypertension)
• Ischemic heart disease
• Osteoporosis
• Stroke/transient ischemic attack 

Map showing the emergency department visit rate by county
for Medicare population with 6 or more chronic conditions.

The data set also includes data for Medicare beneficiaries who have multiple chronic conditions. It tracks:

• Prevalance by county
• Spending per capita
• Emergency department visit rate
• Hospital readmission rate

To access this data set, log in to www.HealthLandscape.org (registration is free), click "Community HealthView" on the Tools menu, and enter "chronic conditions" in the search field. You'll see the list of available data sets.

For a more detailed overview of HealthLandscape and our Community HealthView data library, click here to sign up for an "Introduction to HealthLandscape" webinar.