Andrew Jackmauh, MPA, has worked at the Center for Health Information and Analysis since it was created by the legislature in 2012. He served for eight years as Chief of Staff before being appointed Executive Director earlier this year. He talked with Patient Safety Beat about CHIA’s role as an independent state agency that provides healthcare data and analysis to policymakers, public and private payers and providers, employers, researchers, and the residents of Massachusetts. The Betsy Lehman Center has a close, collaborative affiliation with CHIA.  

Patient Safety Beat: Please describe CHIA’s mission and its role as the state’s healthcare data steward. What data does the agency collect? How does it work with its various constituents across the state? 

Andrew Jackmauh: At its core, CHIA’s mission is to ensure that healthcare leaders have access to the information they need to make informed decisions. Whether it’s policymakers, payers, providers, researchers, or other stakeholders, our goal is to provide timely, reliable data that can help improve the quality of care in Massachusetts while also addressing affordability and cost growth. 

To support that mission, CHIA collects approximately 10,000 data submissions each year from more than 2,000 organizations across the healthcare system. Those submitters include commercial insurers, public programs such as MassHealth and Medicare, hospitals, physician organizations, nursing homes, ambulatory surgical centers, adult day health programs, and many others. Taken together, these data sources give us one of the most comprehensive views of healthcare in the Commonwealth. 

As the state’s healthcare data steward, our role extends beyond simply collecting information. Healthcare data comes from many different entities, each with its own systems, definitions, and reporting practices. We invest significant effort in validating, standardizing, and integrating that information so it can be compared across organizations and used to produce meaningful insights. Those data assets support CHIA’s analyses of healthcare spending, utilization, access, quality, and other measures of system performance. 

We also work closely with stakeholders across the state to ensure the data is put to use. Through a formal application process, researchers, policymakers, healthcare organizations, and other approved users can access CHIA data to support their work. Last year alone, we provided more than 250 data extracts to external users. We also conduct custom analyses and respond to requests from state leaders and policymakers who rely on CHIA’s expertise to better understand emerging issues and evaluate potential policy solutions. 

In that sense, CHIA serves as both a trusted repository of healthcare information and a strategic resource that helps inform decision-making across the Commonwealth. 
 

Patient Safety Beat: How much, if any, of the data submitted to CHIA is mandated or required in some way? 

Andrew Jackmauh: The vast majority of data submitted to CHIA is required under Massachusetts law. CHIA has broad authority to collect information from payers and providers, which is relatively uncommon among state agencies and essential to providing a comprehensive view of the healthcare system. 

But emerging policy needs can move faster than the legislative process. Primary care is a good example. Several years ago, policymakers and healthcare leaders were discussing whether Massachusetts should establish a benchmark for primary care investment. There was broad agreement that primary care was important, but the Commonwealth lacked the data to understand current spending or determine an appropriate target. 

CHIA worked with payers and providers to begin collecting that information before there was an explicit statutory mandate. We made clear that the data would not be used to impose penalties or hold organizations to a financial target. The immediate goal was to establish a reliable baseline and strengthen our understanding of primary care spending. Organizations recognized the value of that work and participated. 

That experience reflects the kind of partner CHIA strives to be. Collecting, validating, and standardizing healthcare data takes time. We cannot always wait until a policy question is fully formed. We need to anticipate where the conversation is heading and begin developing the information policymakers will need to make informed decisions. 
 

Patient Safety Beat: Later this year, the Betsy Lehman Center will launch a pilot program for automated adverse event monitoring in selected hospitals statewide. You serve on the advisory committee for this project. What do you see as the greatest potential coming from this pilot?  

Andrew Jackmauh: The pilot’s greatest potential is its ability to save lives. Identifying adverse events helps hospitals understand where patients are being harmed and creates an opportunity to correct problems, improve practices, and prevent similar events. When I think about this work, I think first about the people behind the data. That human impact is the pilot’s most important promise. 

The benefits could extend further. Reducing adverse events may help avoid unnecessary care and readmissions, shorten hospital stays, lower costs, and ease pressure on hospital staff. The effects can ripple outward to patients, families, providers, and the people delivering care. 

The Betsy Lehman Center has been really thoughtful about hospital participation, encouraging them to examine what is not working and use that information to improve care. If the program were viewed as punitive, organizations might be less willing to identify problems. A measured, collaborative approach supports learning without making the work adversarial. 

CHIA can help evaluate the pilot by examining utilization before and after implementation. That analysis will require care. If hospitals improve their ability to detect adverse events, reported numbers could initially rise even as safety practices improve. By combining different sources of information and distinguishing meaningful changes from statistical noise, we can develop a clearer picture of whether the pilot is improving safety, efficiency, and patient outcomes. 
 

Patient Safety Beat: What are your top priorities in your first year as executive director? What should we be watching for from CHIA in the coming months? 

Andrew Jackmauh: My priorities as executive director center on three areas: first, ensuring that CHIA’s data operations are streamlined and secure; second, focusing our analytics on timely and consequential issues; and third, strengthening relationships with the people and organizations that rely on our data. 

Data security is fundamental to public trust. CHIA holds an enormous amount of sensitive healthcare information, and we have a profound responsibility to protect it as threats evolve. At the same time, we want to make it easier for payers and providers to submit data and for approved users to receive it. We have redesigned our data release process to reduce the time from application to delivery to less than 45 days. 

We also need to ensure that our analytical work keeps pace with the changing healthcare system. Much of CHIA’s work is established in statute and remains essential, but today’s questions aren’t necessarily the same ones the agency was created to address. We must look ahead, identify emerging issues, and provide useful information when it’s needed. That requires close engagement with policymakers, payers, providers, researchers, and other partners. Their needs should help shape where CHIA’s data and expertise can add the most value. 

Several new projects reflect that goal. CHIA is collecting information about private equity and related healthcare entities and preparing its first reports using data from pharmacy benefit managers and analyzing dental utilization in Massachusetts. This work will provide new insight into important and evolving areas of the Commonwealth’s healthcare system.