ArticleJournal of clinical epidemiology2021
Probabilistic linkage without personal information successfully linked national clinical datasets.
Article in Journal of clinical epidemiology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Linking Electronic Health Records for Multiple Sclerosis Research: Comparative Study of Deterministic, Probabilistic, and Machine Learning Linkage Methods.JMIR medical informatics · 2026Article
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- Big data research is everyone's research-Making epilepsy data science accessible to the global community: Report of the ILAE big data commission.Epileptic disorders : international epilepsy journal with videotape · 2024Review
- Willingness of population health survey participants to provide personal health information and biological samples.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Article
- De-identified Bayesian personal identity matching for privacy-preserving record linkage despite errors: development and validation.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2023Article
- Association between pharmacologic treatment and hospital utilization at birth among neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome mother-infant dyads.Journal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association · 2023Article
- Linkage of multiple electronic health record datasets using a 'spine linkage' approach compared with all 'pairwise linkages'.International journal of epidemiology · 2023Article
- Underreporting of unfavorable outcomes of congenital syphilis on the Notifiable Health Conditions Information System in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, 2007-2018.Epidemiologia e servicos de saude : revista do Sistema Unico de Saude do Brasil · 2023Article
- Enhancing Administrative Claims Data: Feasibility, Validation and Application of Linking Medicare Claims Data and National Marrow Donor Program Search Data.JCO clinical cancer informatics · 2022Article
- Data linkage in medical research.BMJ medicine · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundProbabilistic linkage can link patients from different clinical databases without the need for personal information. If accurate linkage can be achieved, it would accelerate the use of linked datasets to address important clinical and public health questions.
objectiveWe developed a step-by-step process for probabilistic linkage of national clinical and administrative datasets without personal information, and validated it against deterministic linkage using patient identifiers. STUDY DESIGN AND
settingWe used electronic health records from the National Bowel Cancer Audit and Hospital Episode Statistics databases for 10,566 bowel cancer patients undergoing emergency surgery in the English National Health Service.
resultsProbabilistic linkage linked 81.4% of National Bowel Cancer Audit records to Hospital Episode Statistics, vs. 82.8% using deterministic linkage. No systematic differences were seen between patients that were and were not linked, and regression models for mortality and length of hospital stay according to patient and tumour characteristics were not sensitive to the linkage approach.
conclusionProbabilistic linkage was successful in linking national clinical and administrative datasets for patients undergoing a major surgical procedure. It allows analysts outside highly secure data environments to undertake linkage while minimizing costs and delays, protecting data security, and maintaining linkage quality.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.