Question

Please name two examples of healthcare data sets, and discuss the strengths and limitations of these data sets

Answer 1

1, The Uniform Hospital Discharge Data Set (UHDDS) - Limitation is this set is specific only to hospitals that provide medical services for those covered by Medicare and Medicaid. However, all insurance companies tend to gather information in similar styles . Hence UHDDS can be generalized. It lists and defines a set of common, uniform meta data and data elements for every hospital inpatient departments. It also includes principal and previous diagnosis, the principal procedure, and other significant procedures in its data repository

2.  Minimum Data Set for long term care (MDS) - It is a standardized, primary screening and assessment tool of health status. It can be used for the comprehensive assessment for all residents in long-term care facilities certified or run byMedicare . One can analyse this data set to collect demographic and clinical data on nursing home residents. These information are mandatory information that must be completed for every resident at the time of admission and hence this is a reliably exhuastive data set. Care plans development and document placement at the appropriate care level are some of the application of this data set