Title 15. AUTOMATED DATA SYSTEMS.pdf ✅

PHARMD GURU Page 1 INTRODUCTION:  Automated data is a creation & implementation of technology that automatically process data.  The technology includes computers & other electronic communications that gather, store, process, prepare & distribute data.  The main purpose is, to quickly & efficiently process large amount of information with minimum human interaction.  Various automated data sources are used world-wide for conducting pharmaco- epidemiological research. Some of them are:  Group Health Cooperative.  Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) research network.  Medicaid Databases.  Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program.  United Health Group. Etc. IDEAL DATABASE:  Ideal database include records from: a) Inpatient (IP) & Outpatient (OP) care. b) Emergency care. c) Mental health care. d) All prescribed and OTC medications. e) All laboratory and radiological tests, and f) Alternative therapies.  The population covered by the database would be large enough to permit discovery of rare events of drugs.  The drug(s) under investigation must be present in formulary and must be prescribed in sufficient quantity to provide adequate power of analysis.  Other requirements of an ideal database are that: a) All parts are easily linked by means of a patient’s unique identifier. b) Records are updated on a regular basis. c) Records should be verified and are reliable. AUTOMATED DATA SYSTEMS
PHARMD GURU Page 2  Information on potential confounders such as smoking & alcohol consumption may only be available through chart review (or) more consistently through patient interviews. CLAIMS DATABASES:  Claims data arises from a person’s use of the health care system.  When a patient goes to a pharmacy and gets a drug dispensed, the pharmacy bills the insurance carrier for the cost of that drug, and has to identify which medication was dispensed, the milligrams per tablet, number of tablets, etc.  Analogously, if a patient goes to hospital (or) to a physician for medical care, the providers of care, bill the insurance carrier for the cost of medical care, and have to justify the bill with a diagnosis.  If there is a common patient identification number for both the pharmacy and the medical care claims These elements could be linked & analyzed as a longitudinal medical record. There is no. of validity checks on the drug data in claims files that showed that the drug data are of extremely high quality. DATA USER
PHARMD GURU Page 3 MEDICAL RECORD DATABASES:  MRD (medical record databases) are more recent development arising out of the increasing use of computerization in medical care.  The validity of the diagnosis data in these databases is better than that in claims databases. ADVANTAGES:  Potentially provides large sample size.  Relatively inexpensive to use.  Data can be complete.  Databases are population based, they can include OP drugs & diseases, & there is no opportunity for recall & interviewer bias. DISADVANTAGES:  Uncertain validity of diagnosis data.  Lack of information on some potential confounding variables. Ex: Smoking, alcohol etc. GROUP HEALTH COOPERATIVE:  Data from health maintenance organization (HMO) has been used extensively to evaluate drug usage and the adverse and beneficial effects of marketed drugs and medical procedures.  GHC’s is an automated & manual database serve as a major resource for many epidemiological studies, because individual records can be linked through time & across data sets by the unique consumer number. HMO RESEARCH NETWORK:  Research units in US HMO’s are in a unique position to integrate research & practice for the improvement of health & health care among diverse population.  It includes large sample size with a wide range of comorbid conditions and concomitant medications to evaluate the beneficial and adverse effects of drugs.