UNH Today

If you or a loved one gives birth, suffers a cardiac emergency, or seeks care for a mental health crisis, crunching data is far from your mind.

But data — who’s paying for care? How long are they staying in the emergency room? How quickly and completely do they recover? — is at the root of high-quality health care. To analyze that data and inform policy and practice, the state of New Hampshire often turns to UNH’s Institute for Health Policy and Practice.

“The IHPP was founded as a state-university partnership,” says Laura Davie, IHPP interim director. “We have a unique agreement with state government to support many different technical assistance and applied research needs in collaboration with various programs for the state.”

As such, the institute provides far more than data analysis and policy recommendations: It offers trainings, convenes practitioners and agencies to promote best practices, and supports the state’s maternal and child health program by hosting the state MCH epidemiologist, Carolyn Nyamasege. IHPP has a long history of helping the Medicaid program determine how to design the program to meet the needs of Granite Staters. Many of IHPP’s state contracts are funded through federal grants awarded to the state, which then partners with IHPP to carry out the work outlined in those grants.

“The state’s Department of Health and Human Services has so many concurrent priorities and sometimes needs specialized help that UNH can offer. So they can work with us to say, ‘Hey, can your team look at this need for technical assistance for the opioid response plan and see what kind of programs will meet the need?’” Davie says. The IHPP, she says, has the expertise that helps the state fulfill contractual obligations of federal grants that support healthy outcomes for Granite Staters.

What’s more, Davie adds, the IHPP can access talent not only within their team but also leverage experts across the university to support needs identified by the State. This has included a relationship with UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law, survey research, and demographic analysis.   

“When the state comes to us, we have analytics, we have writers, we have research to make the information accessible,” ultimately improving the state’s healthcare system, says Kimberly Persson, IHPP project director who works with the State Opioid Response (SOR).

For instance, Persson and her IHPP team managed data collection for The Doorway, the state’s federally funded substance use support network. Their work helped break down silos between The Doorway’s nine regional locations, improving client care.

“Sometimes you have someone show up at the Laconia Doorway, and they used to be associated with the Nashua Doorway. People use the whole system at one time, but there was not a cohesive understanding of how to support clients in doing that,” she says. The IHPP worked with N.H. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the Doorway sites for more than a year to focus on improving the client experience and continuum of care.

Davie points to emergency department visits for suicide or suicide ideation as another data-informed IHPP improvement in partnership with the state. After a Centers for Disease Control report noted New Hampshire had the third highest increase in suicides, DHHS agreed to have IHPP look into emergency room data. “We can show the state what’s happening and work in partnership to implement solutions,” says Davie.

IHPP brings that same analysis and training expertise to behavioral health, Medicaid policy, public health, workforce development and more in New Hampshire. “Doing empirical research that gets implemented into the community and ultimately to the bedside is our sweet spot,” Davie adds.