Linking Health Information
Linking health information or "record linkage" is the amalgamation from two (or more) independent sources that are believed to relate to the same individual.
Contents
Aims
To use record linkage techniques to facilitate the improvement of health care services, the quality of patient care and to support health research in Scotland.
Our Service
Permanently linked national data can undoubtedly offer a cost effective data resource for exploring areas ranging from service provision planning to epidemiological research. Recognition of its potential has served to fuel the demand for new linkages and our door is open to the custodians of patient data, perhaps survey or clinical audit. Come and explore with us how to release the potential of your own data within a linked context. Alternatively, we can help you use existing national data by advising you on the feasibility of analytical projects. Either way we are more than happy to help
Linking Health Information
One of the many great challenges facing a modern health service is how best to support patient care through information management. Ideas on how to bring electronic patient data together are evolving rapidly with the technological capability to deliver and control this. But linking vast amounts of health information is not a new concept in Scotland. Since the late 1980's Information Services Division has been pioneering systems to achieve this using routine hospital admissions data. In fact the story goes back much further than that, to the mid 1960's and far sighted decisions that were taken with this very goal in mind. The initial project has evolved though the methodology developed under Howard Newcombe's principle that record linkage should be "at heart a simple and intuitive process", has changed little.
Our Data
Today we hold two main linked datasets centrally and routinely update them with new information. Hospital discharge records, submitted between 1980 and the present day, from non-obstetric specialties have been brought together and combined with cancer and death registration records to form continuous patient level profiles. We can perform a multitude of analyses centred on the concept of the patient journey using this resource alone. Obstetric data are stored separately within a more appropriate linked environment. The maternity and neonatal database brings together the obstetric histories of mothers delivering in Scotland over the past 25 years, and links with morbidity and mortality outcomes relating to offspring. As an important by-product of these databases, we have developed a system, which monitors and reports the incidence of congenital anomalies across Scotland. In addition, linked analyses have been performed which range from simple patient based counts to complex epidemiological and survival analyses.
Data Confidentiality
Data protection is always our primary concern and proposals are always subjected to close scrutiny in terms of the ethics of privacy and confidentiality. For further information please visit our website at www.isdscotland. org/pac
Chief Scientist Office (CSO)
Since January 2001 ISD has worked in partnership with CSO on research using linked data. Researchers can take part in this scheme by sending the appropriate grant application to CSO. You can find detailed information on the role of CSO and instructions on how to make an appropriate grant application through their website:
http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/cso/
Carole Morris
Printer friendly version
