National Discharge Register

Summary

National Discharge Register is the most comprehensive database on inpatient care in Finland. It contains data routinely collected from all hospitals and other institutions producing inpatient health care. Secondary level outpatient care can be found in the Hospital Benchmarking Database which has a separate description. Each data item refers to one hospital stay. 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 are collected on an annual basis.

First year of collection
2011

Stratification if applicable

Base used for sampling

Geographical coverage and breakdowns

Age range

Statistical representativeness
Population representative

Coverage of main and cross-cutting topics
National Discharge Register contain key inpatient and outpatient data abstractions from the operative systems in hospitals (length of stay, Dx, procedures, etc.), patient (age, gender etc.) and medical data (main and secondary diagnoses, selected treatments) and is basically a Minimum Basic Dataset. Data is available on · anonymised patient level data per hospital stay (sex, age, place of residence, #days of hospitalisation) · medical data on hospital stay (major and additional diagnoses according to ICD-10 standards, procedures/treatments) · points awarded per hospital stay based on DRG system · DRG codes per hospital

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. The National Discharge Register has been a subject of several published data quality evaluations.

Breaks
The data quality has been considered good or satisfactory. The National Discharge Register has been a subject of several published data quality evaluations.

Consistency of terminology or coding used during collection
The data quality has been considered good or satisfactory. The National Discharge Register has been a subject of several published data quality evaluations.

Governance

Contact information
Hanna Rautiainen
THL
P.O. Box 30
FI-00271 Helsinki Finland Phone: +358 29 524 6000
Email: hanna.rautiainen@thl.fi
Url:

Timeliness, transparency