Leveraging Health Care Cost and Affordability Data: A Suite of Analytic Resources 

State leaders seeking to understand the drivers of unsustainable health care costs and their impact on residents can leverage a growing number of available data sources that can complement their own datasets. A companion product to the Excel-based Health Care Cost and Affordability Data Resource Inventory, which offers detail on 20 publicly available data sources, this Guide offers direction on how states can best use a number of these data sources to address common questions and identify solutions to improve health care affordability. The data sources described in the Guide cover the following topics: Health Care Service Spending; Hospital Finances; Consumer Health Care Affordability; and Access to and Utilization of Health Care Services.

The Data Resource Inventory offers details on 20 publicly available national and state data sources on health care cost and affordability. Data sources range from the federal American Community Survey to state all-payer claims databases. The Inventory provides information on each source such as the availability of interactive analytic tools, the frequency of updates, the geographic granularity, known limitations, and much more. See the Introductory Guide for suggestions on how and when to leverage many of these data sources.

This set of Sample Slides, featuring Washington State data, is intended to provide states with a “starter set” of easy-to-use, customizable slides that highlight national and state health care spending and affordability trends using universally available health care data. Use the Databook that accompanies the slides, which includes data for all states, for easy customization. Instructions for customizing data visuals using the Databook are available in the “Notes” section of each slide.