Millions of at-risk individuals. particularly older adults and those that are chronically ill, rely upon essential healthcare services and/or electricity-dependent durable medical and assistive equipment and devices.
This population can be greatly affected by health emergencies such as a pandemic. Public health officials, emergency managers, first responders and providers have reported that they do not have access to timely information to help address all the needs for at-risk populations.
To help during these difficult times, the HHS, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) https://www.phe.gov in partnership with CMS https://www.cms.gov developed the HHS mPOWER Program to ensure continuity of care and services.
To create the suite of tools, the HHS emPOWER Program https://empowerprogram.hhs is able to provide de-identified data from Medicare beneficiaries who are at high risk during disasters and other public health emergencies. Public health authorities have access to the restricted dashboard to view heat maps, tables and bar charts based on de-identified data.
To create the tools, 62 million Medicare Beneficiaries were studied for being at risk for hospitalizations or death from COVID-19 within any setting. The research included beneficiaries living at home, in long-term care facilities, receiving outpatient care, or hospitalized. The model builds on critical factors such as demographics, socioeconomics and health conditions, as well as healthcare services access.
The dashboard indicates population risks for COVID-19 hospitalization and death. In the future the dashboard will include the number of beneficiaries who have been vaccinated for COVID-19. Public health authorities will be able to view the information at the state, county, and ZIP code level.
Only federal, state, territorial, and local public health authorities can access the HHS emPOWER COVID-19 at risk emergency planning data, dashboards, and REST Service data layers. State and territorial health officials on a limited basis, can request more detailed information to support HHS targeted COVID-19 response and outreach public health activities.