The right data can inform population health strategy, goals and outcomes. While healthcare claims data is not the only data required for population health, it is a big factor in driving improvements in population health programs.

Here are eight ways we believe healthcare claims data can inform population health initiatives:

• Managing Overall Costs: Claims data can shed light on the disparate prices doctors and hospitals charge for the same procedures. The data can show total spending within an institution by procedure as well. Claims data can reveal which service lines are performing well and which are struggling with cost-containment.

• Physician Performance: Claims data can help to determine the performance of individual physicians through analysis of the services provided by diagnostic code. Data can reveal if physicians are following nationally recognized medical protocols. An example is diabetes care: According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, claims data can reveal whether a doctor followed nationally recommended protocols for treating patients diagnosed with diabetes. How many received quarterly exams? Did they receive an eye exam? How many were admitted to a hospital?

• Empowered Consumers: Some states through all-payer claims databases (APCDs) are making claims data available to healthcare consumers, with the idea that when consumers can compare prices across physicians and hospitals, they will make better and more informed decisions regarding both quality and cost.

• Improving Quality and Outcomes: When combined with clinical data, healthcare claims data can provide a very broad view at both the patient-level and population-level of interactions across the continuum of care within a healthcare system.

• Reduce Hospital Readmissions: Claims data can help to reduce costly hospital readmissions by uncovering areas by service line and/or at the physician-level where readmissions are occurring most frequently.

• Patient Engagement: Patient engagement is a key to successful population health. Claims data can help reveal when to reach out to patients as well as whether patients are filling prescriptions or following-up with recommended lab tests. In the past, technology lagged when using claims data to reveal patient patterns. However, newer analytics allow for as little as 15 days to reveal patterns such a prescription refills or follow-up tests, providing healthcare clinical teams a reasonable window to follow-up with patient outreach.

• Strengthen Coordination of Care: Claims data, notably when coupled with clinical data, can inform the actions of care teams that can include physicians, care managers, health coaches, caregivers and even the patients. Creating data transparency through patient portals and other tools that aggregate data into usable information allows for care plans to be adjusted to the patient’s needs.

• Amp Up Reporting: The best reporting reveals where there are opportunities to improve and where health systems have effectively made changes. Claims data when coupled with clinical and other data can reveal these insights. Such insights can improve population health initiatives that help to contains costs and improve healthcare quality resulting in healthier populations and healthcare systems.