Data sharing between Nebraska hospitals, UNMC expected to spur new research

OMAHA — Patients could get better-tailored care, and doctors could learn which treatments work best with certain people under a new agreement to share data from Nebraska’s 92 hospitals with researchers at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Leaders with the Nebraska Hospital Association said the data is gleaned from every health claim that hospitals submit to insurers for payment, not from medical records, and it won’t identify patients — no names, no addresses. Insurers include Medicare and Medicaid.

The records contain information that could help UNMC researchers and hospitals improve health care and lower costs, said Jeremy Nordquist, the hospital association president. The information includes ZIP codes, diagnoses, treatments and readmissions.

The hospital association has been gathering the data for two decades. Today, it helps administrators make business decisions involving what kinds of care are needed and where. Later this year, the association will start sharing five years of data annually with UNMC.

A UNMC researcher mining that information, he said, might more quickly identify a cluster of pediatric cancer patients in southwest Nebraska, for example. Researchers would then work with locals to find causes and ways to prevent more cases.

“The value is huge,” Dr. Jeffrey Gold, UNMC chancellor said Tuesday. “Having access to administrative data, real-time data, allows us to monitor the outcomes and the distribution of access to health care across the State of Nebraska.”

Gold said he is hopeful that Nebraska will see outcomes similar to — or better than — what other states have enjoyed after sharing this sort of information with academic medical centers. UNMC researchers are training this month on how to find the data they need.

Already some researchers are discussing potential ways to study mammography, rates of infectious disease and cancer treatments, he said. In public health, for example, he said earlier-stage information could give “signals” that speed up the response and save lives.

“The goal of all of this is to improve access, improve quality and improve value,” Gold said. “It’s very exciting. It’s a very forward-thinking relationship, and we’re very grateful.”

The hospital association’s board decided to share the data because they think it could help address health disparities between rural and urban Nebraskans and between Nebraskans of color and white Nebraskans, Nordquist said. Its hospitals served nearly 4.5 million patients last year.

“Are there different ways to treat diseases where different pockets of the state are seeing different results?” Nordquist asked. “We want healthier Nebraskans.” 

The association shares the information already with the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. But neither HHS nor the association has enough staff to dig deeper into the health care implications, he said. 

Gold said the relationship between UNMC and the hospital association also goes the other way. The hospitals will have specific questions about resources and facilities needed, and UNMC researchers will help them analyze the information.

Said Nordquist: “The potential is almost endless in terms of the research that could be done with it.”