New data center eases access, cost of CMS data

The new Virtual Research Data Center (VRDC) is a secure and efficient means for researchers to virtually access and analyze the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS') healthcare data.

The center was launched at the White House's Data to Knowledge to Action: Building New Partnerships event and is part of President Obama’s Big Data Research and Development Initiative, which aims to improve researchers’ ability to extract knowledge and insights from large and complex collections of digital data, according to a release.

Researchers using the VRDC will access CMS data from their own workstations and will be able to perform analyses and manipulate data within the VRDC. Historically, CMS has filled researchers’ data requests by preparing and shipping encrypted data files. However, given the rapidly growing demand for timelier Medicare and Medicaid data, the agency needs a less resource-intensive means of responding to data requests from researchers, according to the release. The VRDC will help CMS meet these demands while also ensuring data privacy and security and reducing the cost of data access for most users.   

“We’re acutely aware of the huge potential that CMS data holds for creating a more efficient, higher quality healthcare system, and researchers play a large part in this transformation,” said CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner. “By providing researchers with secure, timely and affordable access to CMS data, the agency is making it easier to do the important research that will lay the foundation for better quality and lower costs in the healthcare system.”

Through the VRDC, researchers will be able to access Medicare data at a significantly lower cost. Physical delivery of a large sample of Medicare Parts A, B and D data can cost more than $100,000 for just one year of data but by using the VRDC, a single researcher conducting one project over the course of the year can access as much Medicare data as he or she needs for approximately $40,000.  

Researchers won't need to maintain expensive data infrastructures of their own because they will access the data in a CMS environment by means of a secure virtual desktop and they will be able to refresh their data analyses routinely.

Under the VRDC model, sensitive individually-identifiable information about beneficiaries remains in the CMS data environment, which helps safeguard against breaches or unauthorized uses of the data.

For more information on the VRDC, visit the ResDAC webpage at www.resdac.org.