title: Construction of a linked health and social care database resource--lessons on process, content and culture.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Combining routinely collected health and social care data on older people is essential to advance both service delivery and research for this client group. Little data is available on how to combine health and social care data; this article provides an overview of a successful data linkage process and discusses potential barriers to executing such projects.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We successfully obtained and linked data on older people within Dundee from three sources: Dundee Social Work Department database (30,000 individuals aged 65 years and over), healthcare data held on NHS Tayside patients by the Health Informatics Centre (400,000 individuals), Dundee, and the Dundee of Medicine for the Elderly rehabilitation database (4300 individuals). Data were linked, anonymized and transferred to a Safe Haven environment to ensuring confidentiality and strict access control. Challenges were faced around workflows, culture and documentation. Exploiting the resultant data set raises further challenges centered on database documentation, understanding the way data were collected, dealing with missing data, data validity and collection at different time periods.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Routinely collected health and social care data sets can be linked, but significant process barriers must be overcome to allow successful linkage and integration of data and its full exploitation.
authors.affiliation: Medical Research Institute, University of Dundee , Dundee , UK .
authors.forename: Miles D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Witham
authors.forename: Helen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Frost
authors.forename: Marion
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: McMurdo
authors.forename: Peter T
authors.initials: PT
authors.lastname: Donnan
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: McGilchrist
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D016494:Computer Security; D003219:Confidentiality; D016208:Databases, Factual; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D057286:Electronic Health Records / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D019451:Information Management / Q000458:organization & administration; D008498:Medical Record Linkage / Q000379:methods; D009313:National Health Programs; D015279:Organizational Culture; D012606:Scotland; D012947:Social Work / Q000458:organization & administration*; D018511:Systems Integration
keywords: Database; medical record linkage; older; social work