Documentation and Information System for Health Care System Analysis (DIAG-Extranet)

Summary

Strengths: The registry enables an analysis of epidemiological data, treatment, hospital staff and the costs of hospital activities. Although no personal identifiers are used, theoretically, it would be possible to link multiple hospital stays to individual patients through other identifiers (DOB, postal code). Weaknesses: Data is not available to external researchers unless for very specific purposes. The registry does not include outpatient services and there is no information on referrals (e.g. From GPs or other sources). There is no individual-level data available and the data is collected on the basis of each hospital stay, not by patient (i.e. re-admissions or multiple stays are not tracked). Expertise is also required in order to be able to use the dataset.

Type of data

Data Source
Registry

Type of Study
Other: Registry

Data gathering method
Registries

Access to data

Conditions of access

Type of available data (e.g. anonymised microdata, aggregated tables, etc.)
Anonymised patient-level data per hospital stay (sex, age, place of residence, number of days of hospitalisation)

Formats available

Coverage

Coverage Years of collection, reference years, and sample sizes
Data on diagnoses in hospitals have been collected for 24 years; data on treatment for 16 years; data on intensive care services for 15 years. The sample consists of all individuals who have sought and received care in a social insurance funded hospital in Austria.

First year of collection
1989

Stratification if applicable

Base used for sampling

Geographical coverage and breakdowns

Age range
No age range specified; all individuals seeking/receiving care

Statistical representativeness
Not representative

Coverage of main and cross-cutting topics
Data collected on: hospital cost units (number of beds, personnel, medical equipment, budgeting), anonymised patient-level demographic data (sex, age, place of residence), patient-level medical data (major and additional diagnoses, treatments), hospital-level data on diagnoses and treatments, points awarded per hospital based on DRG payment system, DRG codes for each hospital Corresponds to Health and Performance Topic

Linkage

Standardisation
ICD-10

Possibility of linkage among databases
Date of birth and postal code are included as personal identifiers, therefore the potential is there for linkage with other national databases, but use has been limited to the staff of the Ministry of Health (BMG) Linked to BIG (Business Intelligence in the Health Care System) (See below)

Data quality

Entry errors if applicable
Not reported

Breaks
Not reported

Consistency of terminology or coding used during collection
Not reported

Governance

Contact information
Ulrike Schermann-Richter and Manfred Pregartbauer
Austrian Ministry of Health (BMG)/database maintained by Statistik Austria
Radetzkystraße 2
1030 Vienna Austria Phone: Ulrike Schermann-Richter: 00431711004163/ 00431711004186
Email: ulrike.schermann-richter(at)bmgfj.gv.at
Url: Not available

Timeliness, transparency
Data in the registry is updated monthly; however, the main findings and evaluations are not publicly available.