Administrative data based patient safety research: a critical review
- 1Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Department of Health and Human Services, Rockville, MD, USA
- 2Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Correspondence to: Dr C Zhan Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 540 Gaither Road, Rockville, MD 20852, USA; czhan{at}ahrq.gov
Abstract
Administrative data are readily available, inexpensive, computer readable, and cover large populations. Despite coding irregularities and limited clinical details, administrative data supplemented by tools such as the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) patient safety indicators (PSIs) could serve as a screen for potential patient safety problems that merit further investigation, offer valuable insights into adverse impacts and risks of medical errors and, to some extent, provide benchmarks for tracking progress in patient safety efforts at local, state, or national levels.
Footnotes
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Dr Miller completed the analysis presented here while serving as Acting Director of the Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
