Use of national clinical databases for informing and for evaluating health care policies

Nick Black and Stefanie Tan

Health Policy, 2013, vol. 109, issue 2, 131-136

Abstract: Policy-makers and analysts could make use of national clinical databases either to inform or to evaluate meso-level (organisation and delivery of health care) and macro-level (national) policies. Reviewing the use of 15 of the best established databases in England, we identify and describe four published examples of each use. These show that policy-makers can either make use of the data itself or of research based on the database. For evaluating policies, the major advantages are the huge sample sizes available, the generalisability of the data, its immediate availability and historic information. The principal methodological challenges involve the need for risk adjustment and time-series analysis.

Keywords: Clinical database; Policy; Evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:109:y:2013:i:2:p:131-136

DOI: 10.1016/j.healthpol.2012.10.007

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