A Big Run on Information Requests

Maybe it’s something in the water. At least that’s what Jeff Bontrager, Director of Research on Coverage and Access, speculated during our Monday morning staff meeting as he told us about all of the information requests that are coming our way.

Some background: As part of the public service component of our funding, the Colorado Health Institute conducts health policy research for members of the public free-of-charge if it can be done in four hours or less. We’ve been seeing a high volume of requests lately.

And we’re especially happy to pitch in and provide evidence-based information for state lawmakers working on bills, which we did a couple times last week. 

Meanwhile, it’s another busy week. On Wednesday, Amy Downs, Senior Director for Policy and Analysis, will present our final Legislative Lunch & Learn of the session, titled Bending the Health Care Cost Curve: Market-Based Solutions.

We will release a new report Sharing the Cost in tandem with the presentation. The report, written by Senior Analyst Anna Vigran, focuses on whether the increasing use of consumer cost-sharing in health insurance can help to further slow the growth of health costs. It is the first paper in a planned series titled “Consumer Engagement and the Health Care System.”

Stay tuned for a link to the report and presentation when they are posted later this week.

This Thursday, we will conduct another meeting of the Safety Net Advisory Committee (SNAC)’s Access to Care track. The meeting will draw from some of the findings from CHI’s report - Colorado’s Primary Care Workforce: A Study of Regional Disparities – to discuss the Medicaid workforce.

Other news from around the office:

• Megan Lane, Director of Legislative Services, is busy making trips to the Capitol to monitor bills on CHI’s watch list. Be sure to check out her blog from last week on a bill aimed to reform the Medicaid model in Colorado. We will also be posting a weekly Legislative Roundup blog to track the introduction and progress of all health-related legislation. You can read the first legislative blog here.
• Research Assistant Tamara Keeney will be updating the county health profiles and workforce data on the website.
• Deb Goeken, Senior Director of Operations and Communications, and Brian Clark, Manager of Creative Services, have begun planning CHI’s 2013 Annual Report. To hold you over until the 2013 report is released, you can read our 2012 Annual Report here.
• Anna Vigran, Senior Analyst and Communications Specialist, will be traveling to the Colorado School of Public Health Wednesday to give a presentation titled “What Can CHI Do for You?” to the Community Health Assessment class.

We are in the planning stages for a number of projects set to be released in the coming months. To keep up to date, remember to follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.