Linking Emergency Medical Service Trauma Data in Victoria
Author Information
Author(s): Malcolm J Boyle
Primary Institution: Monash University, Department of Community Emergency Health and Paramedic Practice
Hypothesis
The objective of this study was to identify the linkage rate of a large EMS trauma dataset with the Department of Human Services hospital datasets and the VSTORM dataset.
Conclusion
This study has demonstrated that EMS data can be successfully linked to other health related datasets using deterministic and probabilistic matching with varying levels of success.
Supporting Evidence
- 66.7% of patients from the EMS dataset were located in the VEMD.
- 96% of patients located in the VAED were defined in the VEMD as being admitted to hospital.
- There was a 146% increase in successful links with the trauma profile dataset using manual matching.
Takeaway
The study shows that emergency medical service data can be connected to hospital data to understand patient outcomes better, but there are challenges with data quality.
Methodology
The study used deterministic and probabilistic matching to link EMS trauma datasets with hospital datasets.
Potential Biases
Missing and inaccurate data, especially regarding patient demographics, affected the matching process.
Limitations
Some patients who had minor injuries may not have been included in the study, potentially affecting the linkage results.
Participant Demographics
The study included trauma patients transported by EMS in Victoria from January 1, 2002, to December 31, 2002, with a population of approximately 4.9 million people.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
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