Electronic Maintenance of Case Registers

Abstract

THE HANDLING of data with high-speed electronic equipment such as computers with a "memory" core has come to be referred to as "automatic data processing." Such meth¬ ods are well accepted in industry and the larger research institutions, but are not yet fully exploited in public health and medical research. Vital statistics and other administrative health data are often required with sufficient frequency and detail to justify these newer methods even when the volume of data is small. Examples are birth and death statistics, hospital admis¬ sions and discharges, and rates, percentage dis¬ tributions, life tables, and other computations based on these data. In addition, the efficiency and versatility of electronic computers enable the statistician to conduct many types of analy¬ ses of basic health data that would not have been practical before. One type of computer application is to case registers of chronic disease. By a chronic disease we mean "one which persists over a long period of time, sometimes even for most of the individual's life.. .. It is the changeability and variation, not stability, that is in fact the dominant characteristic of most long-lived con¬ ditions" (1). In a register we attempt to study the dynamic characteristics of a chronic disease by systematically following identified cases over Mr. Phillips is digital computer programer, and Dr. Bahn is chief, Outpatient Studies Section, Biomet¬ rics Branch,

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