USE OF COMMERCIAL RECORD LINKAGE SOFTWARE AND VITAL-STATISTICS TO IDENTIFY PATIENT DEATHS

We evaluated the ability of a microcomputer program (Automatch) to lin k patient records in our hospital's database (N = 253,836) with mortal ity files from California (N = 1,312,779) and the U.S. Social Security Administration (N = 13,341,581). We linked 96.5% of 3,448 in-hospital deaths, 99.3% for patients with social security numbers. None of 14,0 73 patients known to be alive (because they were subsequently admitted ) was linked with California deaths, and only 6 (0.1%) of 6,444 were f alsely identified as dead in the United States file. For patients with unknown vital status but items in the database likely to be associate d with high 3-year mortality rates, we identified death records of 88% of 494 patients with cancer metastatic to the Liver, 84% of 164 patie nts with pancreatic cancer, and 91% of 126 patients with CD4 counts of less than 50. Hospital data can be accurately linked with state and n ational vital statistics using commercial record linkage software.