Linking hospital episodes for health research; the effects of data quality
Guest blog by Sarah Rees, Senior Data Scientist, SAIL Analytical Services. Electronic health record (EHR) data are available for research in all UK nations and cross-nation comparative studies are becoming more common. All UK inpatient EHRs are based around episodes; a continuous period of time spent under the care of one clinical specialty in one hospital. However episode-based analysis doesn’t really capture the full patient journey.