To accomplish this goal, the symposium convened a panel of policymakers, including William Halsey, Connecticut’s Medicaid director. Kate McEvoy, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors. Rebecca Haffajee, Principal Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation us Department of Health and Human Services.
Halsey, who runs Husky Health, Connecticut’s public health insurance program, said one of the major hurdles for state officials to work with academics is ensuring states can safely and securely share sensitive medical data with researchers. He said it would take a long time to conclude a data sharing agreement to allow for this. (This includes Medicaid, which serves approximately 800,000 residents).
“We protect that data very carefully, but we want it to be available to researchers to inform policy,” he said. “…We are interested in partnering with researchers who can provide what I would call actionable information on how to inform policy in real time rather than five or 10 years from now. ”
Currently, Wallace, Ndumere and other Yale researchers are working with Halsey to secure an agreement to access state data for research purposes.
McEvoy, who previously served as director of Husky Health, praised Yale’s willingness to work with state authorities through the lengthy legal process.
“The steep climb around data access cannot be overstated,” she said. “This is almost an endurance test…Certainly, the people at Yale who are participating in convening this event have been really good standard-bearers here.”
