Midwest Health Initiative (MHI), a regional health improvement collaborative, is pleased to share its latest community scorecard, based on medical claims for 750,000 commercially insured patients during the 2021 calendar year. Published annually, the scorecard summarizes measures of disease prevalence, health care utilization, and cost to aid regional leaders in identifying opportunities to improve the health of our population and track progress towards achieving collective goals.
New additions to the scorecard this year include an updated nephropathy (kidney test) measure. According to the Centers for Disease Control, an estimated one in seven adults have Chronic Kidney Disease. Unfortunately, 90% don’t know they have the condition until it’s too late to prevent its serious and expensive consequences. An improved measure for kidney screening in adults with diabetes has been developed by the National Kidney Foundation and the National Committee for Quality Assurance. Adopted in 2020, the new measure tracks the percentage of people with diabetes that have received the current best practice in assessing kidney health: both a blood test (eGFR) and a urine test (uARC). The urine albumin creatinine ratio has the ability to detect kidney damage earlier than a decline in the estimated glomerular filtration rate is observed, bringing meaningful clinical value to at-risk patients.
To underscore the importance of primary care, MHI has also added a scorecard metric reporting the number of commercially insured individuals with an established primary care relationship (overall and by age category). “A relationship with a primary care provider helps to ensure that our community members and employees are receiving preventive screenings and managing chronic conditions to achieve the best health outcomes,” explained Mark Mispagel, MHI Board Member and Managing Director, Total Rewards, for Spire Inc. “By demonstrating that less than half of the local population has a regular source of primary care, the MHI Health Stats scorecard serves as an important benchmark for monitoring our region's progress in increasing access to high-quality, affordable primary care."
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