Presentation Summary: Death is an important study outcome and ascertaining death, specifically out-of-hospital death, remains a challenge for many multi-site studies. In recent years some multi-site HCSRN studies have included collaborations with non-HCSRN sites which have less complete death information. In such instances, attaining ‘complete’ death and cause of death information can be challenging.
This panel provides an overview of VDW mortality data and present any available information about data quality across HCSRN entities. We describe a recent example of HCSRN entities providing VDW mortality data to a Sentinel study which evaluated the association between montelukast and suicide, thereby playing an important role in public health safety surveillance. This case-study will provide a real-world example demonstrating challenges and considerations for researchers when examining death as an endpoint. We also discuss the utility of including NDI data to supplement the VDW in multi-site HCSRN studies and provide an overview of newly developed reusable tools designed for making the NDI linkage process more efficient in multi-site research settings. The panel will lead an open discussion around mortality information, and key considerations for determining how to gather high quality death information for multi-site research studies.
Fuller CC, Ng D, Eworuke E, Lyons J, Shoup JA. “To Link or Not to Link?” Strengths, Challenges and Applications of HCSRN Mortality Data and NDI Data Linkage. 26th Annual Health Care Systems Research Network Conference; 2020 Apr 8.
