IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v17y2019i1p8-d299207.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Availability of Real-World Data in Italy: A Tool to Navigate Regional Healthcare Utilization Databases

Author

Listed:
  • Edlira Skrami

    (Centre of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Information Technology, Università Politecnica delle Marche, 60126 Ancona (AN), Italy)

  • Flavia Carle

    (Centre of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Information Technology, Università Politecnica delle Marche, 60126 Ancona (AN), Italy)

  • Simona Villani

    (Department of Public Health, Experimental and Forensic Medicine, University of Pavia, 27100 Pavia (PV), Italy)

  • Paola Borrelli

    (Department of Public Health, Experimental and Forensic Medicine, University of Pavia, 27100 Pavia (PV), Italy)

  • Antonella Zambon

    (Department of Statistics and Quantitative Methods, University of Milano-Bicocca, 20126 Milano (MI), Italy)

  • Giovanni Corrao

    (Department of Statistics and Quantitative Methods, University of Milano-Bicocca, 20126 Milano (MI), Italy)

  • Paolo Trerotoli

    (Department of Biomedical Sciences and Human Oncology, University of Bari, 70121 Bari (BA), Italy)

  • Vincenzo Guardabasso

    (Teaching Hospital “Policlinico-Vittorio Emanuele”, University of Catania, 95123 Catania (CT), Italy)

  • Rosaria Gesuita

    (Centre of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Information Technology, Università Politecnica delle Marche, 60126 Ancona (AN), Italy)

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to map and describe the healthcare utilization databases (HUDs) available in Italy’s 19 regions and two autonomous provinces and develop a tool to navigate through them. A census of the HUDs covering the population of a single region/province and recording local-level data was conducted between January 2014 and October 2016. The characteristics of each HUD regarding the start year, data type and completeness, data management system (DMS), data protection procedures, and data quality control adopted were collected through interviews with the database managers using a standard questionnaire or directly from the website of the regional body managing them. Overall, 352 HUDs met the study criteria. The DMSs, anonymization procedures of personal identification data, and frequency of data quality control were fairly homogeneous within regions, whereas the number of HUDs, data availability, type of identification code, and anonymization procedures were considerably heterogeneous across regions. The study provides an updated inventory of the available regional HUDs in Italy and highlights the need for greater homogeneity across regions to improve comparability of health data from secondary sources. It could represent a reference model for other countries to provide information on the available HUDs and their features, enhancing epidemiological studies across countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Edlira Skrami & Flavia Carle & Simona Villani & Paola Borrelli & Antonella Zambon & Giovanni Corrao & Paolo Trerotoli & Vincenzo Guardabasso & Rosaria Gesuita, 2019. "Availability of Real-World Data in Italy: A Tool to Navigate Regional Healthcare Utilization Databases," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(1), pages 1-12, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2019:i:1:p:8-:d:299207
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/1/8/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/1/8/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Surasak Saokaew & Takashi Sugimoto & Isao Kamae & Chayanin Pratoomsoot & Nathorn Chaiyakunapruk, 2015. "Healthcare Databases in Thailand and Japan: Potential Sources for Health Technology Assessment Research," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(11), pages 1-20, November.
    2. Martin Ladouceur & Elham Rahme & Christian A. Pineau & Lawrence Joseph, 2007. "Robustness of Prevalence Estimates Derived from Misclassified Data from Administrative Databases," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 63(1), pages 272-279, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marica Iommi & Andrea Faragalli & Martina Bonifazi & Federico Mei & Lara Letizia Latini & Marco Pompili & Flavia Carle & Rosaria Gesuita, 2022. "Prognosis and Survival in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis in the Era of Antifibrotic Therapy in Italy: Evidence from a Longitudinal Population Study Based on Healthcare Utilization Databases," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(24), pages 1-10, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Steve Gallivan & Christina Pagel, 2008. "Modelling of errors in databases," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 35-40, March.
    2. Dlugosz, Stephan & Mammen, Enno & Wilke, Ralf A., 2017. "Generalized partially linear regression with misclassified data and an application to labour market transitions," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 145-159.
    3. Mohammad Ehsanul Karim & Paul Gustafson, 2016. "Hypothesis Testing for an Exposure–Disease Association in Case–Control Studies Under Nondifferential Exposure Misclassification in the Presence of Validation Data: Bayesian and Frequentist Adjustments," Statistics in Biosciences, Springer;International Chinese Statistical Association, vol. 8(2), pages 234-252, October.
    4. Mingkai Peng & Guanmin Chen & Lisa M Lix & Finlay A McAlister & Karen Tu & Norm R Campbell & Brenda R Hemmelgarn & Lawrence W Svenson & Hude Quan & Hypertension Outcomes Surveillance Team, 2015. "Refining Hypertension Surveillance to Account for Potentially Misclassified Cases," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(3), pages 1-11, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2019:i:1:p:8-:d:299207. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.