Software to increase health-care data

The Utah Department of Health's Health Data Committee plans to use new software that will provide "significantly more" health-care data. That, in turn, will provide much richer, clearer information to help with system reform.

It has selected software, which will be tested during the next few months, that will support an all-claims database so that information on visits to clinics, doctors' offices and urgent care centers can be analyzed, along with that already generated through hospital, ambulatory surgery center and emergency department visits.

It will be possible, for instance, to start with the first prenatal visit and include all other visits, pharmacy claims, lab tests, procedures, the delivery and postpartum care in looking at the real health-care costs of pregnancy.