Internal deterministic record linkage using indirect identifiers for matching of same-patient hospital transfers and early readmissions after acute coronary syndrome in a nationwide hospital discharge database: a retrospective observational validation study.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

To assess validity of record linkage using multiple indirect personal identifiers to identify same-patient hospitalisations and definition of episode of care (EC) due to acute coronary syndrome (ACS).

Methods

Using national hospital discharge data to identify all admissions due to ACS, we used six different linkage rules using indirect identifiers with increasing level of detail and compared validity against a pseudonymised unique identifier used as gold standard (GS). Contiguous hospitalisations within each matched group of hospitalizations occurring within 28 days of each other were considered one EC. We classified hospitalisations according to time between the first pair of hospitalisations as hospital transfer (HT: ≤1 day), early readmission (ER: 2-28 days) or

SUBMITTER: Rocha A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6955528 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature