Accuracy of hospital discharge data for cancer registration and epidemiological research in Northern Ireland.
BACKGROUND
Cancer registries provide a basis for many epidemiological studies in cancer. Electronic data provide for prompt, economical data capture for disease registries; doubts, however, exist about their data quality.


METHODS
We examined the accuracy for cancer registration of a subset of 7043 electronically captured hospital discharge data.


RESULTS
Note availability was 82%. Of the notes available for examination demographic data accuracy was high; however, 7.4% of cases coded on discharge as cancer had no malignancy recorded in case notes while 4. 1% had in-situ or benign tumors. Almost a third had some inaccuracy in coding tumor site. Prevalent cases accounted for 17.2% of cases examined reflecting a new registry. Electronic data capture reduces time spent examining notes; only 40% of cases notified from PAS required a quick validation check. It enhances data completeness; without electronic discharge data 11.5% of the final database would have been missed. The validation check prevented overinflation of the cancer registration database by 7.5%. Measures of accuracy in the final database were high.


CONCLUSIONS
This study shows that discharge data are a valuable data source for cancer registries but require a targeted note review aimed at cases without corroborating data.
Middleton
R J
RJ
Northern Ireland Cancer Registry, Department of Epidemiology, Belfast. nicr@qub.ac.uk
Gavin
A T
AT
Reid
J S
JS
O'Reilly
D
D
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016021:Epidemiologic Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology*; D009660:Northern Ireland / Q000453:epidemiology; D010351:Patient Discharge / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011786:Quality Control; D012042:Registries / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*