During natural disasters such as hurricanes, Medicare claims data is highly effective for identifying those individuals who are dependent on life-maintaining medical and assistive equipment and are at risk from prolonged power outages.
That’s the contention of Karen DeSalvo, MD, former National Coordinator for Health IT, who made the case for leveraging such beneficiary data in testimony on Wednesday before the Senate Special Committee on Aging, which held a hearing on disaster planning for older Americans in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.
