San Francisco, CA – May 1, 2013 – Archimedes, Inc., a healthcare modeling and analytics company, announced today that it has begun collaborating with the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to provide unprecedented access to synthetic CMS claims data. The collaborative efforts will feature the use of Archimedes' ARCHeS Simulation and Analytics software suite to provide easy to use analytic support to analyze the Medicare Data Entrepreneurs' Synthetic Public Use File (DE-SynPUF). Data entrepreneurs and researchers will be able to use the synthetic data to develop research protocols that will ultimately help users make informed decisions based on the data.
"HHS is committed to furthering the power of data and we have entered into this important collaboration to help maximize the availability and use of the Medical DE-SynPUF dataset," said Bryan Sivak, Chief Technology Officer at US Department of Health and Human Services. "We believe the Archimedes technology will help interested parties gain access to this data in an easy-to-use platform that will allow them to customize their analysis queries, yielding more meaningful results."
Access to CMS Linkable 2008-2010 Medicare DE-SynPUF provides researchers and data entrepreneurs a glimpse into the wealth of information contained in the CMS claims data. The challenge has been the ability to deliver big data, like the DE-SynPUF set in an easy-to-use format that provides a straightforward method for analysis. Archimedes' ARCHeS Population Explorer (ARCHeS PE) will allow users to quickly query and analyze the dataset to understand the rates of various outcomes for specific Medicare populations, such as those with a particular health condition, age criterion, medication use, or a combination of these factors. Access to the Medicare DE-SynPUF datasets are made freely available through Archimedes' tools via http://www.healthdata.gov and Archimedes' website at http://www.archimedesmodel.com/free-applications.
"Our continued collaboration efforts with organizations like HHS, and its subsidiary agencies, are crucial for us to realize our vision of revolutionizing medicine worldwide through mathematics," said David Eddy, M.D., Ph.D., founder of Archimedes and pioneer in the area of evidenced-based medicine. "Our modeling and analytics tools can help researchers, life-science organizations, government agencies, payers, and providers use the data to make informed decisions for the benefit of their constituents. The beauty of ARCHeS PE is that you do not need to be a statistician in order for you to benefit from the data."
The full potential of ARCHeS PE can be experienced in a training session immediately preceding Health Datapalooza IV, the fourth annual national conference born from government efforts to liberate health data and addresses the effective use of health data by companies, startups, academics, government agencies and individuals. Commentary from Dr. Eddy on Health Datapalooza and its implications is available at http://youtu.be/X9C9hBIjCfw. All attendees will receive training and a one month free subscription to all of the ARCHeS Simulation and Analytics software suite. Visit http://healthdatapalooza.eventbrite.com/# to confirm attendance.
About DE-SynPUF
The CMS Linkable 2008-2010 Medicare Data Entrepreneurs' Synthetic Public Use File (DE-SynPUF) is a set of free downloadable files containing a subset of the data fields contained in inpatient, outpatient, carrier, and prescription drug event (PDE) claims and the beneficiary summary files. The files represent a synthetic 5% sample of 2008 Medicare beneficiaries and their claims from 2008 to 2010. All data has been completely de-identified so patients' records are totally confidential.
About ARCHeS
ARCHeS can be used to answer a wide variety of questions and analyze problems related to cardio-metabolic risk, COPD, nephropathy, and CHF. Archimedes recently expanded ARCHeS by adding new tools for big data analysis and visualization that enable data sources such as electronic health records (EHRs), clinical trial data, Archimedes Model simulation output, and claims data to be combined into a single analysis platform. Free access to basic ARCHeS functionality is available via Archimedes' website, http://archimedesmodel.com/free-applications. ARCHeS Population Explorer (ARCHeS PE) is an analysis and reporting tool that enables users to dive into multiple sources of data and easily compare them – apples to apples and oranges to oranges. Users explore the results in real time, defining populations and analyzing their outcomes over time. ARCHeS PE makes it easy to make changes to the composition of the population and immediately see the effects on health outcomes or costs.
About Archimedes, Inc.
Archimedes Inc. is a healthcare modeling and analytics organization. Its core technology - the Archimedes Model - is a clinically realistic, mathematical model of human physiology, diseases, interventions, and healthcare systems. Archimedes continually validates the Model by comparing the results of simulated trials to the results of multinational clinical trials and cohort studies. Through products such as IndiGO and ARCHeS, Archimedes helps people understand the implications of their decisions. For the last 15 years, Archimedes has assisted health plans, health systems, medical groups, patients, pharmaceutical companies, researchers, and other organizations in the United States and Europe answer questions related to health and economic outcomes research, policy creation, clinical trial design, and performance improvement. Archimedes, a Kaiser Permanente Innovation, is based in San Francisco, California. For more information about Archimedes and its product offerings, please visit the company's website at http://www.archimedesmodel.com.