THE HOSPITAL INPATIENT INQUIRY SCHEME - A STUDY OF DATA ACCURACY AND CAPTURE

In order to measure the coverage and accuracy of the Hospital In-patie nt Enquiry Scheme data in a large acute hospital in Dublin, 793 patien t charts were selected randomly from all the discharges in 1990. The c apture rate was 56%, Whether a diagnosis was captured for the Hospital In-patient Enquiry Scheme depended partly upon geographical factors w ithin the hospital and partly upon the nature of the diagnosis. ''Non- capture'' was not random and was particularly likely to occur where th e case was complex, e.g. oncology, HIV infection. The coding accuracy of primary diagnoses was 59% and the completeness of recording of seco ndary diagnoses was 56%. Both were significantly associated with the p resence in the hospital chart of discharge summaries and with the clar ity and source of written diagnoses. The factors that affected accurac y were not the same as those affecting the capture rate.