Deterministic record linkage of health data as preparatory work in modelling and simulation - use case: hospitalizations in Austria

Modelling and simulation as decision support in the health care sector often requires real world data. Complex models covering a variety of different areas within one model, for example outpatient and inpatient sector together, if treatment paths are examined, utilize different data sources. If those data sources are not linked, only point images are possible or the modeller has to define assumptions covering the gap of unlinked data. Therefore, a good record linkage allows more precise and reliable models and as a consequence better decision support. Within this paper a deterministic record linkage of two different data sources of the inpatient sector is proposed and tested. The results show a matching of 99.94% for initially 1.27 million data entries of one source. The linkage gives additional access to data from the outpatient sector. More information concerning a single patient is available, which can be utilized in different decision support models.