Analyzing healthcare performance
The Challenge
Improving healthcare quality requires understanding where the challenges and opportunities exist.
The United States’ healthcare system is the most expensive in the world, costing $4.3 trillion or 18% of the national economy, yet it produces worse health outcomes than many of peers. Administrative inefficiency, high healthcare prices paid by private payers, rising prescription drug costs, and increased volume of care are among the many issues contributing to the steep rise in spending.
The high cost of care also exacerbates disparities in access to and quality of care. The inequitable distribution of affordable healthcare by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status leaves marginalized groups with worse health outcomes. Communities of color, those with lower incomes, and uninsured adults report difficulty affording care services, often delaying or forgoing care as a result.
The poor performance of our healthcare system is caused by many intertwined and interrelated factors. Healthcare decision-makers need to know what those factors are and how they affect the performance of our healthcare system if they are to make healthcare more efficient and affordable.
Our Solution
Analyzing the performance of the U.S. health system provides data to inform policies that improve care quality and affordability.
The Peterson Center on Healthcare tracks and reports on the performance of the U.S. healthcare system to identify what works—and what doesn’t—to improve quality and reduce cost. We work with healthcare data analysis leaders to provide timely, trusted evidence to policymakers, employers, purchasers, and other stakeholders, which informs policies and strategies to improve healthcare.
Our Projects
Featured Project
Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker
Policymakers, providers, payers, and patients need to understand healthcare system trends, drivers, and issues that affect performance. The Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker measures and visualizes the performance of the U.S. healthcare system to provide clear, actionable insights into the issues and opportunities facing healthcare.
Understanding Drivers of Healthcare Spending
Less evidence exists about healthcare spending at the local level than nationally. The Center works with academic partners to produce localized, data-driven insights on health spending and outcomes, filling gaps in healthcare data, allowing decision-makers to develop targeted policies for improving healthcare performance.
Privately Insured People With Depression and Anxiety Face High Out-Of-Pocket Costs
In this brief, we explore health spending among privately insured adults treated for depression and/or anxiety.
Use of ACA Preventive Services Potentially Affected by Braidwood v. Becerra
In this analysis, we find that nearly 10 million people who use ACA preventive care could face higher out-of-pocket costs.
Prices for COVID-19 Testing
In this analysis, we use various data sources to look at prices for COVID-19 tests performed in an outpatient clinical setting and at home.