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Overview of Kaiser Fast Facts 
Kaiser Fast Facts is a new component of the Foundation's kff.org site, featuring new tools that provide direct access to facts, data and slides about the nation's health care system and programs, in an easy-to-use format.
Kaiser Fast Facts features QuickTakes (more below) and Kaiser Slides (more below).
Kaiser Fast Facts also provides direct access to our collection of fact sheets -- two-page overviews of complex health policy issues -- and other online data and analysis tools that the Foundation has created, such as the interactive Medicare Health Plan Tracker, State Medicaid Fact Sheets and the Medicaid Benefits Database, as well as the statehealthfacts.org and globalhealthfacts.org Web sites. Fast Facts serves as a portal to the Foundation's interactive online tools, so check back often as new tools and features are added.
What are QuickTakes?
QuickTakes are the Foundation's inventory of facts-at-a-glance, providing a concise overview of the health care system, as well as key facts about a wide variety of health policy topics, including: Medicaid, the uninsured, health care costs and insurance, Medicare, public opinion, HIV/AIDS, minority health, women's health policy and the entertainment media and health.
These facts are compiled from the Foundation's own studies and analyses as well as those from other organizations. QuickTakes offer up-to-date health policy statistics that provide an overview of key aspects of the health care system, without the need to search through various publications. But if you'd like to read the full report, QuickTakes also provide links to related materials and sources.
Overview of Kaiser Slides
Kaiser Slides offers instant, free access to Kaiser's collection of hundreds of graphics and tables presenting health policy statistics and trends. The slides, which cover a broad range of topics, explain key aspects of health policy issues and can be viewed online, downloaded as an individual PowerPoint or Excel table, opened as print-friendly PDFs for use in your own presentation or as handouts at meetings and events. Slides can also be combined into your own, customized My Slideshow which you can also download as a PowerPoint file or print as a PDF. Slides will continually be updated as new data become available, so you can always be sure you're using the latest information available on a particular topic.
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Browse by Topic
Each slide in Kaiser Slides has been assigned to one or more topics, so the easiest way to start using the tool is to select a topic from the list in the left navigation area to browse all matching slides. You can always select a different topic to conduct a new search. Browsing by topic displays all slides, chartbooks, and slideshows that match your search, with the number of matching items displayed in each tab of the search results. You'll find that only the first 10 matching slides are shown by default - select the "more" button at the bottom of the results to see all matches. You can also click on a slide's image, its title, or the enlarge button in search results to view the larger version of the slide and navigate through the search results slide-by-slide.
From either the search results or the enlarged view, you can select individual slides to download as PowerPoint or Excel files, print as PDF, view even larger in it's own browser window, or add to My Slideshow to build your own customized set of slides for printing or downloading at a later time.
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Slideshows
Slideshows are sets of related slides that have been grouped together to offer easy access to all slides from a particular Kaiser report, presentation, or topic.
Slideshows containing recent slides that have been featured as Data Spotlights on the kff.org home page or slides related to various topics are available from the facts.kff.org homepage. Check back often for the latest set of slideshows available from Kaiser Fast Facts, and please see My Slideshow below for information on how you can create your own, customized slideshow.
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Chartbooks
Chartbooks present a large collection of slides organized thematically around a particular topic, such as Health Coverage in America. These chartbooks -- usually organized into several sections or chapters -- contain narrative text and description to frame the story told by each slide. Slides within each chartbook will be updated frequently as new data become available. Individual slides, sections, and entire chartbooks are available for download as PowerPoint or PDF files, with the text description for each slide appearing in the notes field when viewed in PowerPoint. Check back often for the latest set of chartbooks and updated slides from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
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What is My Slideshow?
"My Slideshow" allows you to create your own collection of slides for viewing, downloading as a single PowerPoint file, or printing as a print-friendly PDF. Simply add any individual slide to your "My Slideshow" one-by-one using the "Add to My Slideshow" button below each slide. Or, select multiple slides via the check box to the left of each slide's image in your search results, then add the selected slides to your "My Sideshow" via the button at the top of your search result.
After adding slides to your "My Slideshow," you can either continue to search to add more slides, or go directly to your "My Slideshow" for viewing, downloading, or printing. Downloading large numbers of slides via "My Slideshow" can take some time, so please be patient. Note that your "My Slideshow" is automatically emptied when you close your browser, so please be sure to download or print your slides before leaving.
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Help with Downloads
Using and manipulating any Kaiser slide you download as a PowerPoint file requires that Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 or later is installed on your computer. To simply view the PowerPoint files, you can use the free Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer program. Using tables downloaded as Excel requires Microsoft Excel 2003 or later. Similarly, viewing and printing PDF files requires the free Adobe Acrobat Reader application.
When downloading a PowerPoint file, you should see a dialog box similar to the one below after a brief delay while your file is prepared for download:
To view and manipulate the slides in PowerPoint, do not select "Open" in this dialog. Instead, select "Save", chose a location you'll remember, and then open the downloaded file either through Windows Explorer or using the "Open" command in the "File" menu of your PowerPoint application.
Selecting "Open" from the dialog above will usually open the PowerPoint files within your browser window in presentation mode, not from within your PowerPoint application. The presentation will fill the entire screen, and you will not have the ability to save, print, or manipulate the slide(s). To exit the presentation, right click anywhere on the presentation, and select "End Show."
If the dialog above does not appear, and the slides open directly in your browser window, you may need to change your Windows settings as follows:
- Locate the My Computer icon on your desktop or Windows Start Menu and double click the icon.
- Select the "Tools" menu and then select "Folder Options".
- From within the Folder Options window, select the "File Types" tab.
- Scroll down through the "Registered file types"
list and select "PPT"
in the Extensions
column (see screenshot below).
- Click on the Advanced button circled above in the "Details for 'PPT' extension" section.
- This will open the " Edit File Type" dialog window shown below.
- Scroll through the list of "Actions" and
select "Open".
- Click on Set Default. If this action is
already the default, "Open" will be in bold and the "Set Default"
button will be disabled (grayed out) as it is in the
screen shot below.
- Select the "Confirm open after
download option" circled above.
- Unselect the "Always
show extension" and "Browse in same
window" options.
- Click OK to return to the
Folder Options dialog window.
- Click OK to return to
My Computer.
- Close the My Computer window.
If you experience any other difficulties working with downloads from Kaiser Slides, please Contact Us.
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Search Tips
In addition to browsing slides by topic, you can also search for slides using the search box located on the bottom left of facts.kff.org or in the left navigation area below the browse by topic list in all other fast facts pages. Searches can be limited to slide titles only (which is selected by default), or you can search slide description and source fields as well by unselecting that option. You can also limit your keyword search to particular topics by using the topic drop down list below the search box.
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How to Cite Us
Most of the information available on Kaiser Fast Facts is public and may be reproduced for free with appropriate citation. You are encouraged to include slides downloaded from Kaiser Slides in your own presentations, however we ask that you do not delete the source or notes line(s).
Please cite data as follows: "The Kaiser Family Foundation, Kaiser Fast Facts. Data Source:…., accessed on [date], available at [url]" The data source may be cited using the reference that appears on this website under "Source:" for each slide.
For example, "The Kaiser Family Foundation, Kaiser Fast Facts. Data Source: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Office of the Actuary, National Health Statistics Group, available at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/ (see Historical; NHE summary including share of GDP, CY 1960-2006; file nhegdp06.zip), accessed on May 22, 2008, available at http://slides.kff.org/chart.aspx?ch=202."
In rare cases, the data may be copyrighted, and the authors have requested that the data not be reproduced without express permission. If this is the case, the sourcing information on the slide itself will specify.
If you have questions about data use or if your organization would like to link to Kaiser Fast Facts, please Contact Us.
