michigan informatics

Statistical Information Not on the Internet

Not all health data sets and statistics are freely or publicly available on the Web. In some cases only summaries or partial data sets are available and the full sets must be purchased. New privacy concerns as a result of the HIPAA regulations may cause organizations to limit access to data. For example, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) states on its web site that some data sets are so limited that a Medicare beneficiary might be identified when files are relinked although all direct identifiers are stripped out. CMS requires a signed Data Use Agreement (DUA) between CMS and the requestor to ensure that the data are protected in these files.