KANSAS CITY, Mo. (Dec. 18, 2024) – KC Health Collaborative, a nonprofit organization that works to transform healthcare delivery and create a healthier future for all residents, released today a first-of-its-kind local data set to help the community identify opportunities to improve the health of Kansas City-area residents. Serving as a standard that leaders can use to gauge how the health of their populations compares to the benchmarks, the data unveils several significant healthcare utilization trends (below) that the region has experienced since the pandemic.
Health inequities cost the U.S. economy $451 billion in 2013 according to the National Institutes of Health, and if left unaddressed, the cost of health inequities will hit $1 trillion by 2040, according to a Deloitte report. U.S. healthcare spending hit $4.5 trillion in 2022, yet healthcare outcomes aren’t better. KC Health Collaborative aims to address these issues in Kansas City head on to advance health equity by creating a centralized hub of reliable health data for leaders to develop solutions for underserved areas.
The 2024 Kansas City Health Stats Scorecard from KC Health Collaborative, in partnership with Midwest Health Institute is the first of many planned data reports to be released by the organization in the future as it looks deeper into inequities and has a clearer picture of how local healthcare organizations and providers can help improve healthcare outcomes. Businesses also play an important role in health equity with their ability to offer better health insurance options that address preventative care, resulting in more productive employees and healthier communities.
“This is the first step in a long journey that we envision, where we share with the public a unique data story,” said KC Health Collaborative Executive Director Dan Cranshaw. “This report benefits the healthcare ecosystem by providing important information that enables people to make good decisions about corporate, community and population health. We intend to continue collecting health data in the future so we can deepen shared understanding and drive improvements in the health of all Kansas City metro residents.”
The 2024 Kansas City Health Stats Scorecard represents medical and pharmacy claims in the commercially insured population of Kansas Citians 64 years old and under from 2020 to 2023.
“This is the first time that KC Health Collaborative is releasing population health data and it’s very exciting as we look at the big picture of the future of healthcare in Kansas City,” said KC Health Collaborative Board Chair Jill Watson, who also serves as Network & Government Strategy Executive at North Kansas City Hospital. “In our future state, we can use this model to look deeper at inequities from other populations like the uninsured and through a more inclusive lens like REL (race, ethnicity and language) so we have a better idea of what resources are needed to best serve the community. These initial findings are intriguing and provide good insight into real-world trends that our local healthcare providers face.”
Several trends are uncovered in the inaugural report, including:
The number of opioid prescriptions filled has decreased on average by 8.8% since 2020.
Total emergency department (ED) visits in Kansas City have grown more than 5% over the last four years.
Utilization of CT (+8.4%), MRI (+7.3%) and PET imaging (+11.9%) have increased from 2020 to 2023.
Since 2020, the total annual spend and pharmacy spend per person have increased by 9.4% and 14.5%, respectively.