The challenges of linking and using administrative data from different sources - ARCHIVED

At the Institut national de santé publique du Québec, the Quebec Integrated Chronic Disease Surveillance System (QICDSS) has been used daily for approximately four years. The benefits of this system are numerous for measuring the extent of diseases more accurately, evaluating the use of health services properly and identifying certain groups at risk. However, in the past months, various problems have arisen that have required a great deal of careful thought. The problems have affected various areas of activity, such as data linkage, data quality, coordinating multiple users and meeting legal obligations. The purpose of this presentation is to describe the main challenges associated with using QICDSS data and to present some possible solutions. In particular, this presentation discusses the processing of five data sources that not only come from five different sources, but also are not mainly used for chronic disease surveillance. The varying quality of the data, both across files and within a given file, will also be discussed. Certain situations associated with the simultaneous use of the system by multiple users will also be examined. Examples will be given of analyses of large data sets that have caused problems. As well, a few challenges involving disclosure and the fulfillment of legal agreements will be briefly discussed.