The importance of health insurance claims data in creating learning health systems: evaluating care for high-need high-cost patients using the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network (PCORNet)

Case management programs for high-need high-cost patients are spreading rapidly among health systems. PCORNet has substantial potential to support learning health systems in rapidly evaluating these programs, but access to complete patient data on health care utilization is limited as PCORNet is based on electronic health records not health insurance claims data. Because matching cases to comparison patients on baseline utilization is often a critical component of high-quality observational comparative effectiveness research for high-need high-cost patients, limited access to claims may negatively affect the quality of the matching process. We sought to determine whether the evaluation of programs for high-need high-cost patients required claims data to match cases to comparison patients.