The Hospital Benchmarking Database

Summary

Each data item refers to one hospital stay or visit. Whether one patient is hospitalised n times per quarter or whether n patients are hospitalised once can be easily distinguished. Linkage possibilities to other national registers using the unique personal identification is a major strength. However, the data contents in the minimum data set are fairly limited, clinical parameters, health behaviour data and other crucial risk adjustments/outcomes measures (e.g. QoL data) are missing.

Type of data

Data Source
Registry

Type of Study

Data gathering method
Registries

Access to data

Conditions of access

Type of available data (e.g. anonymised microdata, aggregated tables, etc.)
Register data

Formats available
SAS

Coverage

Coverage Years of collection, reference years, and sample sizes
Data collected on an annual basis.

First year of collection

Stratification if applicable

Base used for sampling

Geographical coverage and breakdowns

Age range

Statistical representativeness
Population representative

Coverage of main and cross-cutting topics
The Hospital Benchmarking Database contain key inpatient and outpatient data abstractions from the operative systems in hospitals (length of stay, in which ward etc.), patient (age, gender etc.) and medical data (main and additional diagnoses, selected treatments). Hospital, hospital specialty unit and regional level data are available for various indicators for activity/utilization: DRGs, bed-days, discharges,outpatient visits. The Hospital benchmarking database also contains total operating costs at hospital and hospital specialty level.

Linkage

Standardisation

Possibility of linkage among databases
Individual level data can be linked using the unique and national personal identification code. However, linkage requires substantial justification on behalf of researchers due to data protection protocols.

Data quality

Entry errors if applicable
The data quality has been considered good or satisfactory.

Breaks
The data quality has been considered good or satisfactory.

Consistency of terminology or coding used during collection
The data quality has been considered good or satisfactory.

Governance

Contact information
Pirjo Häkkinen
THL
THL, P.O. Box 30
FI-00271 Helsinki Finland Phone: +358 29 524 6000
Email: pirjo.hakkinen@thl.fi
Url: http://uusi.sotkanet.fi/portal/page/portal/etusivu

Timeliness, transparency