Dive Brief:
- The American Medical Association (AMA) announced this week it added a "Population Health Explorer" feature to its Health Workforce Mapper.
- The new feature provides information on healthcare access, quality, and health behaviors according to geographic location.
- The AMA partnered with the American Academy of Family Physicians Robert Graham Center and HealthLandscape to develop the tool.
Dive Insight:
Additional functionality was added to the AMA's Health Workforce Mapper tool to help identify underserved areas. The organization hopes that lawmakers and researchers will use the tool to propose strategies for reducing gaps in the availability of healthcare services.
An original version of the Health Workforce Mapper only showed availability of healthcare services across different locations. The recently added feature will allow users to compare the availability of services with other information, including demographics and certain health indicators. With the new functionality, users could, for instance, compare the availability of pediatricians with childhood obesity rates or the availability of preventive services with smoking rates.
In addition to influencing policy decisions, the AMA hopes that medical students and residents will use the tool to determine where their services are needed the most.