[Documentation procedures in geriatrics--on unreliability of routinely gathered clinic data]

We analyzed quality assurance protocol records of 532 geriatric hospital patients in comparison to an administration database concerning data on "length of stay" information (LOS). Doctors handwritten quality assurance protocol records corresponded in 74.25% of cases to administration data. 14.47% of cases were registered with different LOS; 11.28% of LOS information was missing. The increasing amount of documentation tasks in German geriatric hospitals is discussed.

We assume that not only discrete well known information (admission and discharge dates, LOS) are contaminated by documentation failure but also data on functional status of geriatric patients which may have important influence on external data processing.