In what is a true collaborative interaction, ABI has entered into an agreement with the Arkansas Insurance Commission (AIC) and the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement (ACHI), to allow faculty at ABI member institutions access to the Arkansas All Payer Claims Database (APCD). The Arkansas APCD, created under the direction of Dr. Joe Thompson, ACHI director and then Arkansas Surgeon General and the AIC, is a legislatively mandated central repository for health insurance claims data from all major public and private health insurance providers in Arkansas. One of our major goals with this collaboration is that through this access, investigators will be able to put together novel projects and strategies to support extramural grant applications and publications.
Through this new AIC/ACHI/ABI agreement, researchers will have access to the Arkansas APCD for the purposes of conducting health research. In cooperation with Dr. Fred Prior, chair of the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Biomedical Informatics, investigators will be given access to the database for approved projects.
For access to the Arkansas APCD, projects must be approved and reviewed by the ABI, ACHI, and AIC. This entire submission process will not be lengthy and the infrastructure for the approval process is in place. Download the ABI APCD Project Request Form (version 3.0, updated 11/1/22).
Order of Events to Start a Project
- Submit signed form with a project description to Jimie Jarry by email at jmjarry@uams.edu in the ABI office.
- Projects will be forwarded to AIC and ACHI for review
- AIC/ACHI approve
- ABI notifies database managers at UAMS DBMI who to contact for the project.
- UAMS DBMI database managers contact PI/collaborators to provide login credentials.
- Investigators will have access to the Arkansas APCD for the approved project, initially for 18 months, with potential for renewal.
Initially, we anticipate approvals will go to investigators who have expertise in conducting research in these large scale databases. However, in partnership with ACHI, we are hoping to start offering training sessions this fall/winter for investigators who want to take advantage of this resource. ABI is also committed to helping build collaborations between researchers who want to partner in taking advantage of the resource. Also, it would just greatly extend the length of this email and I would inevitably miss someone if all were named, but a huge thanks and debt of gratitude for pulling this off goes out to a lot folks at the ABI member institutions, the ABI Board of Directors, and the staff at ABI/AIC/ACHI.
If you have any questions about any part of the process, project appropriateness, or need assistance identifying collaborators, please contact me, Dr. Robert E McGehee, Executive Director ABI, by email at rem@uams.edu, or by phone at 501-603-1998.