Colorado Launches Health Data Bank for Rural Communities
The Colorado Rural Health Center (CRHC) has launched the Health Awareness for Rural Communities (HARC) Data Bank, which the organization says will enhance access to streamlined data sharing and collaboration for rural healthcare providers, communities and other interested stakeholders.
"As advancements toward a data-driven healthcare system continue, the need for aggregated and accurate rural health data is growing," Michelle Mills, CRHC's CEO, said in a statement.
The HARC Data Bank is a collective of over 100 population health measures. It contains demographics, health indicators and projections from all 47 rural and frontier counties in Colorado—everything from expected emergency room visits to the rate of colorectal cancer deaths and number of adults with high blood pressure.
As the State Office of Rural Health, CRHC—established in 1991—serves not only as a resource for rural health facilities, but the clearinghouse for information concerning rural health."HARC aligns with the mission of CRHC, while increasing the knowledge and understanding of rural population health," said Mills. "Using data to tell the story of rural communities is a key component for understanding health, while also catalyzing change." Through secondary analysis of publicly-available data, the HARC Data Bank is the only known data bank dedicated solely for examining county-level health data for rural Colorado, officials say.
