NYU Health Evaluation and Analytics Lab (HEAL)

The New York University Health Evaluation and Analytics Lab (HEAL) was established in 2016 by the Department of Population Health at the NYU School of Medicine and the NYU Wagner School of Public Service. HEAL promotes applied research to help health sector organizations evaluate initiatives that seek to improve health outcomes among populations and to improve health care delivery practices. HEAL has built a unique New York State Medicaid claims file that captures information from every medical care claim paid by the New York State Medicaid program. This large data system allows for a wide range of evaluative work focused on improving care and outcomes for the most vulnerable New Yorkers, who rely on Medicaid to pay for their medical care needs. The data set also allows providers to better track the services received by patients they serve.  Built in close collaboration with the New York State Department of Health, HEAL’s system allows for great flexibility in a) identifying individuals who are affected by new “treatments” (which could be new care approaches, new social policies, or new Medicaid policies); b) measuring outcomes for these individuals; and c) developing comparison samples to facilitate assessing impacts associated with the “treatments.” The data in its current iteration has information for the past 13 years and is updated quarterly.