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Quality in Hospital Administrative Databases |
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PP: 1-6 |
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Author(s) |
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Alberto Freitas,
Juliano Gaspar,
Nuno Rocha,
Goreti Marreiros,
Altamiro da Costa-Pereira,
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Abstract |
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| The clinical content of administrative databases includes, among others, patient demographic characteristics, and codes for
diagnoses and procedures. The data in these databases is standardized, clearly defined, readily available, less expensive than collected
by other means, and normally covers hospitalizations in entire geographic areas. Although with some limitations, this data is often used
to evaluate the quality of healthcare. Under these circumstances, the quality of the data, for instance, errors, or it completeness, is of
central importance and should never be ignored. Both the minimization of data quality problems and a deep knowledge about this data
(e.g., how to select a patient group) are important for users in order to trust and to correctly interpret results. In this paper we present,
discuss and give some recommendations for some problems found in these administrative databases. We also present a simple tool that
can be used to screen the quality of data through the use of domain specific data quality indicators. These indicators can significantly
contribute to better data, to give steps towards a continuous increase of data quality and, certainly, to better informed decision-making. |
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