Quality control of hospital discharge data

Data based on medical records of discharged hospital patients are widely used. However, recent studies of the reliability of discharge data have found error rates which appear to be high, in view of the important data uses. In this paper, the procedures reportedly followed to control the quality of discharge data by private abstracting services, the national Hospital Discharge Survey and the Medicare system are described. Some weaknesses of the quality controls of the existing systems are identified. Recommendations are made for reducing duplicate data collection efforts, and for studies of the relative effectiveness and costs of various quality control procedures.