Administrative Data Center

M-SCORE serves as a resource center for research based on analysis of large administrative databases. The Data Center houses staff programmer/analysts and computer systems for managing large volumes of administrative data with appropriate data security. Ongoing projects are exploring variation in cancer surgery outcomes, “integrative” measures for assessing surgical performance, utilization and outcomes in bariatric surgery, and others. In exploring these areas, M-SCORE researchers are using data from the national Medicare database, linked SEER-Medicare files, the national Healthcare Utilization Project, and administrative datasets from the state of Michigan.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan Surgical Quality Improvement Initiatives in Bariatric, Cardiac, and General/Vascular Surgery

M-SCORE also serves as a resource center for three Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan-funded clinical outcomes registry-based surgical quality improvement initiatives. The three projects share common purposes: to foster regional collaboration between hospitals and surgeons; to identify variations in both practice and outcomes and thus opportunities for improvement; and to implement improvement activities and evaluate their effectiveness. With each of the 3 projects, BCBSM is funding a substantive share of the cost of data collection at the participating sites, centralized functions related to data audit, analysis, and reporting, as well as regular meetings of the participants. Although they share many common features, the projects differ in many important respects, including the extent to which they build on existing regional and/or national efforts.

• Bariatric
• Cardiac
• General/Vascular Surgery