Healthcare Openness and Access Project: Mapping the Frontier for the Next Generation of American Healthcare, June 2018 Update

Abstract

The Healthcare Openness and Access Project (HOAP) is a collection of state-by- state comparative data on the flexibility and discretion US patients and providers have in managing healthcare. HOAP combines these data to produce 37 indi- cators of openness and accessibility. In turn, these indicators are grouped into 10 broad subindexes (Corporate, Insurance, Occupational Regulation, Pharma- ceutical Access, Telemedicine, Direct Primary Care, Medical Liability, Provider Regulation, Public Health, and Taxation), which in combination form the overall HOAP index. The indicators, subindexes, and overall index are all scored on a 1-to-5 Likert scale. The project provides state-by-state rankings over a number of variables. Using the data provided on the project’s website, readers may adjust the weights on the indicators to custom-build subjective measures and rankings that differ from the ones presented in this paper. This June 2018 update revises some of the data series from the original November 2016 study.

Keywords: health, health data, healthcare, Medicaid, public health, regulation, caregiving, health professional, hospital, medicine, nurse practitioner, pharmacist, optician, midwifery, physician, telemedicine

JEL Classification: I100, I110, I180, H7