Abstract
As the availability of both health utilization and outcome information becomes increasingly important to health care researchers and policy makers, the ability to link person-specific health data becomes a critical objective. The integration of populationbased administrative health databases has been realized in British Columbia by constructing an historical file of all persons registered with the health care system, and by probabilistically linking various program files to this ‘coordinating’ file. The linkages have achieved a high rate of success in matching service events to person-specific registration records. This success has allowed research projects to be proposed which would otherwise not have been feasible, and has initiated the development of policies and procedures regarding research access to linked data. These policies and procedures include a framework for addressing the ethical issues surrounding data linkage. With continued attention to confidentiality issues, these linked data present a valuable resource for health services research and planning.
Résumé
L’accès aux données concernant l’utilisation des services de santé et l’impact des interventions devient de plus en plus important pour les chercheurs en services médicaux et les élaborateurs de politiques de santé. La capacité de lier les données d’identification individuelle devient un objectif essentiel. L’intégration de larges banques de données a été réalisée en Colombie-Britannique en constituant un dossier historique (de coordination) de toutes les personnes enregistrées avec le système de services médicaux. Ceci permet de créer un lien entre plusieurs banques de données d’utilisation des services et les données d’identification individuelle. Ce succès a permis la soumission de nouveaux projets de recherche qui ne seraient autrement pas possible, et le développement de politiques et procédures en ce qui concerne l’accès aux données liées. Ces politiques et procédures incluent une structure pour traiter les questions d’éthique concernant les données liées. En tenant compte des questions de confidentialité, les données liées sont présentement une ressource de grande valeur pour la recherche et la planification des services de santé.
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