Concerns raised over incorrect ethnicity data in NHS hospital records

[Northerner]

Up to 40% of people belonging to minorities could have their ethnicity wrongly recorded in their NHS hospital records with potentially profound implications for the analysis of inequalities in care quality or disease prevalence in different ethnic groups, research suggests.

Minority ethnic groups have been found to have different probabilities of developing different diseases and of surviving them but a paper published in the Royal Statistics Society’s (RSS) magazine Significance on Monday indicates that some analysis could have been based on flawed data.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/dec/01/nhs-records-ethnicity-incorrect-disease-prevalence

 

[trophywench]

Our eldest daughter had been having Coventry hospital investigations for headaches and iffy vision. One of the tests they had to do was a brain scan, and she said she'd happily go to any of the local hospitals (in the same 'Group') to get it. There was an apt free at Warwick Hosp so she went there and had it.

So Warwick Hosp as you'd expect, dived into her computer records as they hadn't got the paper ones and couldn't find her at all.

She happens to have a photographic memory so asked them to check a certain different hospital number instead. They found it, and they found this woman with the same Christian name & DoB, different surname, different address ....... it covered her from birth up to teens, then she disappeared (she had nowt wrong with her during that period) so they knew she'd fractured her skull when she was 3, but not that she'd had 3 kids (eldest 24, whose son is 3!) or operations on her shoulders, and all the other things she'd had done over the years.

On that record, they had sent reminders for this scan apt etc, she only knew about it cos she rang to ask when it was - being as they'd said it was urgent and she hadn't heard.

Whole thing was a humungous mess.

Sorted out now - but I'm not at all surprised, if someone said they were eg Etrurian or something, if the person hasn't heard of Etruria they probably just ticked any old box to get on and keep their number of entries up for the day. Potty.

 

[MacG3]

I am always in a state of shock when it comes to health data, I've spent the last ten years working on entity analytics (linking identities across multiple systems) and every time I meet someone working in healthcare they are convinced that the NHS number is unique to the individual. Although if this was true we wouldn't have been able to reduce the individuals in NHS Wales from 30 million down to 6 million 🙂

The problem is that although the NHS number has only been required data for a health system since April 2013, it is considered "cheaper" to assume it is correct.

The old adage from when I first started working in IT many, many years ago is still true - Garbage in, Garbage out.

When ever you get the chance, always check any information when decisions are being made on your behalf, in healthcare or any other industry.