Comorbidity coding trends in hospital administrative databases

• Type: Article in International Conference Proceedings Book
• Date: 2016

Authors

Freitas A (Author) FMUP; Garcia Lema, Isabel (Author) FMUP; Costa-Pereira A (Author) FMUP

Conference proceedings International

Title: NEW ADVANCES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGIES, VOL 2

Pages: 609-617

World Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (WorldCIST)

Recife, BRAZIL, MAR 22-24, 2016

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 17 Citations

Scopus - 21 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-00K-AJ3

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-31307-8_63

Abstract (EN): Comorbidities are related to an increase in hospital costs, hospital mortality and length-of-stay. The analysis of inpatient comorbidities is therefore important for hospital management, for epidemiological studies, and for health services research and planning. In this paper we study the annual evolution of coded comorbidities in administrative databases. We used data from Portuguese hospitals over a period of eleven years (2000-2010). We identified comorbidities in 7,034,213 inpatient episodes using both the Elixhauser and the Charslon/Deyo comorbidity methods. Our results clearly evidenced a positive association between the number of secondary diagnosis and coded comorbidities. We argue that the increased number of comorbidities over time is mostly related to an increase in the quality of coded data. Data analysts, researchers and decision makers should always be aware of possible data quality bias, such as completeness, when using administrative databases.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 9