Health Information Solutions has developed customized linkage algorithms for several health and demographic databases.
Our most well known linkage is for infant hospital discharge records, maternal hospital
discharge records, and vital statistics birth certificate data. Our probabilistic algorithms deliver linkage percentages exceeding 98%.
We have also developed a probabilistic linkage technique for matching re-hospitalizations and transfers
of under-one-year olds to their birth hospitalization as well as for matching maternal prenatal
and postnatal hospitalizations.
Starting with birth cohort year 2006, we extended the linkage to include a) any matches of infants under 1 year of age in ambulatory surgery or emergency
department records, and b) any matches of maternal prenatal (within 9 months prior to the delivery) or maternal postnatal (within 1 year of the delivery) visits in ambulatory
surgery or emergency department records.
For more information or to obtain these linked data files, contact the California Healthcare Information Resource Center.
Additional linkage projects include...
- Matching Medicare beneficiary data to California hospital discharge data
- Linkages for the California Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Outcome Reporting Program (CCORP)
- Linkage of pediatric emergency department encouters to inpatient admissions
- Matching of EMS trasport and emergency department encounter data
- Linkage of maternal postpartum deaths to vital statistics birth certificate data.