Validation of administrative health data for the pediatric population: a scoping review

Abstract

BackgroundThe purpose of this research was to perform a scoping review of published literature on the validity of administrative health data for ascertaining health conditions in the pediatric population (≤20 years).MethodsA comprehensive search of OVID Medline (1946 - present), CINAHL (1937 - present) and EMBASE (1947 - present) was conducted. Characteristics of validation studies that were abstracted included the study population, health condition, topic of the validation (e.g., single diagnosis code versus case-finding algorithm), administrative and validation data sources. Inter-rater agreement was measured using Cohen’s κ. Extracted data were analyzed using descriptive statistics.ResultsA total of 37 articles met the study inclusion criteria. Cohen’s κ for study inclusion/exclusion and data abstraction was 0.88 and 0.97, respectively. Most studies validated administrative data from the USA (43.2%) and Canada (24.3%), and focused on inpatient records (67.6%). Case-finding algorithms (56.7%) were more frequently validated than diagnoses codes alone (37.8%). Five conditions were validated in more than one study: diabetes mellitus, inflammatory bowel disease, asthma, rotavirus infection, and tuberculosis.ConclusionsThis scoping review identified a number of gaps in the validation of administrative health data for pediatric populations, including limited investigation of outpatient populations and older pediatric age groups.

Children with neurodevelopmental disorders and disabilities: a population‐based study of healthcare service utilization using administrative data

“…Finally, case ascertainment studies using both diagnosis and functional limitation information should be conducted to provide further validation information. 16 As expected, children with NDD/D had consistently higher service utilization rates than those without NDD/ D. Differences ranged from small to very large effect sizes for the number of physician visits, hospitalizations, and prescription medications. Notably, the number of days a prescription medication was dispensed was four times as high (85d vs 20d) for children with NDD/D as in children without NDD/D.…”

“…those who do not have continuous MSP registration) is warranted. Finally, case ascertainment studies using both diagnosis and functional limitation information should be conducted to provide further validation information …”

Real-World Evidence to Assess Medication Safety or Effectiveness in Children: Systematic Review

“…While most concede the higher accuracy of data collected in a research setting, many accept that databases collected for non-research purposes may offer larger sample sizes and a more generalizable study population. Others have also noted limitations of the databases that have pediatric populations, citing a lack of clinical detail (and basic information such as birth weight and gestational age) and validation of pediatric outcomes [57][58][59][60][61][62]. Some scientists have noted that RWE studies can have sample sizes orders of magnitude larger than those in RCTs [63].…”

Validation of acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) recording in electronic health records: a systematic review protocol

“…A full draft search strategy can be found in online supplementary file 1. The search strategy used to detect the validation terms will be guided by the strategy developed by Benchimol et al 25 and strategies used in similar reviews21 22 26–28 of validation studies in EHR databases. The reference lists of retrieved articles will also be searched.…”