PM SOWA1,2, WE HOY1,3, J ZHANG1,3, A CAMERON1,3, LB CONELLY1,2
1National Health and Medical Research Council Chronic Kidney Disease Centre for Research Excellence (NHMRC CKD.CRE), Brisbane, QLD; 2Centre for Business and Economics of Health, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD; 3Faculty of Medicine, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD
Aim: To describe research opportunities from the linkage of CKD surveillance records with patient-level hospital utilisation data in Queensland.
Background: Little is known about healthcare resource consumption occasioned by preterminal CKD. The Health Economics Stream of the NHMRC CKD.CRE has partnered with the Department of Health, Queensland (QH), to link approximately 8,000 patients with CKD recruited to the CKD.QLD Registry to five years of their hospital data (2011-2016), across all health care facilities in Queensland, as gathered by QH information systems. QH will also supply data on 20,000 additional de-identified patients with CKD, matched with CKD.QLD Registry patients for health service areas.
Methods: The linked data include detailed information on hospital admissions, treatment and discharge from the Queensland Hospital Admitted Patient Data Collection, deaths from the Registry of Deaths, and costs from Queensland Clinical Costing. The researchers will apply modern econometric techniques appropriate for the analysis of large datasets.
Discussion: This rich dataset will allow comprehensive research on the health service implications of CKD. The research themes are well-aligned with four state and national health priorities. They include (1) health and health care of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, and geographical variations in health service utilisation across different socioeconomic groups; (2) research on ageing that examines the interactions of CKD with comorbidities; (3) prediction and prevention, focused on understanding CKD progression and its implications for individual well-being and health system resources; and (4) health service improvement for CKD, identifying areas of poor efficiency.
Conclusions: Administrative health sector datasets allow important quality and auditing functions but are under-used for research purposes, especially in CKD. Our findings are likely to attract national and international interest.