title: Use of commercial record linkage software and vital statistics to identify patient deaths.
abstract: We evaluate the ability of a microcomputer program (Automatch) to link patient records in our hospital's database (N = 253,836) with mortality files from California (N = 1,312,779) and the U.S. Social Security Administration (N = 13,341,581). We linked 96.5% of 3,448 in-hospital deaths, 99.3% for patients with social security numbers. None of 14,073 patients known to be alive (because they were subsequently admitted) was linked with California deaths, and only 6 (0.1%) of 6,444 were falsely identified as dead in the United States file. For patients with unknown vital status but items in the database likely to be associated with high 3-year mortality rates, we identified death records of 88% of 494 patients with cancer metastatic to the liver, 84% of 164 patients with pancreatic cancer, and 91% of 126 patients with CD4 counts of less than 50. Hospital data can be accurately linked with state and national vital statistics using commercial record linkage software.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco 94143, USA. newman@cdrp.ucsf.edu
authors.forename: T B
authors.initials: TB
authors.lastname: Newman
authors.forename: A N
authors.initials: AN
authors.lastname: Brown
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D015982:Bias; D002140:California; D003644:Death Certificates; D005260:Female; D006751:Hospital Information Systems; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008498:Medical Record Linkage; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized; D008838:Microcomputers; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012943:Social Security; D012986:Software Validation