The National Association of Health Data Organizations (NAHDO) is a national non-profit membership and educational association dedicated to improving health care data collection and use. NAHDO’s members include state and private health data organizations that maintain statewide health care data bases and stakeholders of these data bases in the public and private sectors. NAHDO and its members are leaders in hospital discharge data reporting systems and emerging All-Payer Claims Data Bases (APCDs).
Since 1986, NAHDO has provided technical assistance and transfer of best practices across states through national workshops, webinars, and forums. For 25 years, NAHDO’s national conferences have convened state, federal, and private sector leaders in health care data collection, analysis, and dissemination. NAHDO has directly worked with states to implement inpatient, ambulatory surgery, and Emergency Department data reporting programs, and recently has been working with states and the All Payer Claims Data Base Council to help states expand reporting to include all payer claims data from commercial and public payers.
NAHDO has been a leader in the development and implementation of national standards for hospital discharge data and is collaborating with the Public Health Data Standards Consortium, the APCD Council, and America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) to develop core APCD reporting standards for state-based claims data systems.
NAHDO’s national network is extensive and diverse and works together to assure the sustainability and enhancement of existing large-scale health care data bases and improve the analytic workforce in its member agencies. NAHDO assists health care data reporting programs develop and implement health data reporting policies that balance data availability and use with the protection of patient privacy and confidentiality.
NAHDO History
The National Association of Health Data Organizations (NAHDO) was created by Washington Business Group on Health (WBGH) and the Intergovernmental Health Policy Project (IHPP) at George Washington University in the spring of 1986. At that time, NAHDO's purpose was to support the activities of state-level agencies - state data organizations (SDOs) - mandated to collect, analyze, disseminate, and use hospital discharge data sets. In the summer of 1986, representatives from state data organizations in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Tennessee met with WBGH and IHPP in Washington, DC, to launch NAHDO. Two years later, in April 1988, NAHDO became a private, not-for-profit, national educational and charitable membership organization (501-C-3).
In 1989, the NAHDO Board of Directors broadened the membership qualifications to include organizations and individuals from the private for-profit and not-for-profit sectors. Today, NAHDO's membership includes SDOs, federal agencies, peer review organizations, software and hardware vendors, consultive groups, and universities, as well as representatives from state and regional hospital associations, managed care organizations, health services research organizations, and the media, among others.
NAHDO is the only organization of its kind, bringing together members of the public and private sectors of the health information industry. As with any successful organization, NAHDO's success is linked inexorably to its members and their involvement in the association, their belief in the importance of NAHDO, and their commitment to helping NAHDO meet its mission.
Mission Statement
Mission Statement of the National Association of Health Data Organizations
The National Association of Health Data Organizations (NAHDO) is a national, not-for-profit membership organization dedicated to improving health care through the collection, analysis, and dissemination of health care data.
NAHDO provides leadership in health care information management, analysis, and public reporting and promotes the availability of and access to health care data. NAHDO encourages the uses of data to make informed decisions and guide health policy. NAHDO provides information on current issues and strategies directed to developing a nationwide, comprehensive, integrated health information system by sponsoring educational programs, providing technical assistance and convening forums to foster collaboration and the exchange of ideas and experiences among collectors and users of health care data. Through these activities, NAHDO works to increase the state of knowledge.
Objectives
NAHDO and its members work to:
- Advocate for the development of public domain health data organizations and the use of their data to address national, state, and local issues and patient-level concerns
- Promote uniformity and standardization of health care data collection and dissemination among public, private, and voluntary data collectors and users
- Promote cooperation among public and private organizations that collect, analyze, and disseminate health care data as well as those entities that develop applications and tools to add value to the data
- Promote the knowledge and understanding of privacy regulations and practices that protect the protection of patient identifiable data
- Provide timely access to the latest developments, trends, and expertise in health care information
Statement of Principles on Information for Health System Transformation
NAHDO supports the development of a nationwide, publicly-controlled health information infrastructure built on the strength and expertise of existing public and private health care data programs.
NAHDO believes in advancing the following principles to accomplish its mission:
- Policies that protect the privacy and confidentiality of the patient are essential to a viable, robust health information system
- Data must be uniform and comparable
- Data must be transformed into meaningful information for multiple users with diverse needs
- A nationwide health information infrastructure should provide comprehensive data on health status, health system capacity, use, costs, charges, expenditures, and payments and support measures of health care quality and threats to health
- A public-private partnership is key to a successful nationwide health information infrastructure
- Federal guidance is needed to ensure the quality, completeness, comparability, timeliness, accuracy, and accessibility to individual-level, longitudinal information
- Sufficient resources should be invested in database development, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination initiatives, information technology, and in efforts to enhance current information systems.
For more information, please contact NAHDO at info@nahdo.org