ECHIM Final Report

Electronic health
records
Health insurance
registers
Registers on use
of prescription
medicines
Registers on
implants (e.g.
hip, knee) and
transplants (e.g.
kidney, liver,
heart, lung)
Accidents and
injuries registers
Many countries will
introduce electronic
records to replace their
current records. The same
validity and comparability
comments apply as above.
May reflect well the use of
health care and medicines
as well as work disability.
Describes accurately the
use of medicines and
persons using them.
Excellent validity, where
such registers exist. May
describe both patients on a
waiting list for a transplant
and those who have had an
operation.
Good coverage and
validity.
E-Health systems will likely vary both
in coverage and coding for many years
to come. Therefore, their promises may
not be fulfilled. Their introduction
may involve a several-year period of
uncertainty.
System dependent; comparisons between
countries can be very difficult.
System dependent; comparisons
unproblematic only for a few EU
countries.
System dependent; very uneven provision
of data in various EU countries. Coverage
may vary.
System dependent; sources used vary; data
not available in many EU countries.
Health interview
surveys (EHIS
and national)
Broad coverage of health
and use of care; items such
as perceived health, known
diseases, self-reported
functional limitations,
doctor and dentist
visits, use of medicines.
Simultaneous access to
socio-economic data.
Reasonable comparability
if the EHIS protocol is
used.
Participation rates have typically been
low (60–70%) in national HISs and must
be improved. Even rather high response
rates may give biased results and apparent
differences between countries. Several
typical HIS items depend on cultural
factors and health care systems. Methods
must be developed to take account of
these differences or to compensate for their
effects. Today HISs are partly comparable
in Europe.
Health
examination
surveys (HES)
In addition to the above
HIS information can
be obtained on risk
factors (BP, lipids),
anthropometric
and physiological
measurements, clinically
assessed diseases and
functional limitations.
Validity is good and
comparability depends
on standardisation. Other
benefits are the same as for
HISs.
As above, relatively low participation rates
can bias the results. Results affected by
differences in measurement protocols and
environments. A standardisation scheme
(EHES) is under development and will be
tested in pilot national HESs.
23