Linked Insurance-Tumor Registry Database for Health Services Research

摘要: OBJECTIVE Breast cancer screening and treatment data are often limited to restricted populations, including women older than 65 years old. The goal of this project was develop procedures link tumor registry insurance claims databases on younger old with breast assess the accuracy validity linked dataset. METHODS Iowa Cancer Registry (ICR) Wellmark Blue Cross/Blue Shield (BC/BS) membership files incident in situ or invasive from 1989 1996 were linked. An automated deterministic match followed visual inspection three independent reviewers applying a matching protocol. Matched overall compared population representativeness. Claims BC/BS for cases during 1994 examined coding recent diagnosis treatment. RESULTS final dataset included 4,397 matched patients aged 21 1996. sociodemographic characteristics ICR (n = 7,469) carcinoma nearly identical those 3,449). Nearly all (96%) 445 had (CPT, DRG, ICD-9 code) indicative cancer. Treatment patterns varied by source, agreement ranging 76% 82%. CONCLUSIONS generalizability these demonstrate their potential further health services research among insured Additionally, process outlined may be useful developing other datasets study cancers