Administrative Databases and Outcomes Assessment: An Overview of Issues and Potential Utility

OBJECTIVE: To make health care researchers, clinicians, and managers who are relatively new to outcomes research using administrative databases more aware of issues to consider when planning or conducting studies, and to encourage improvement in the data quality and structure of administrative databases. CONCLUSION: Administrative databases are being used more frequently in the assessment of health care interventions. Their increased popularity as a research tool can be attributed to timely availability, the large patient populations they cover, low cost, and applicability in the real world. However, there are limitations to their use as an outcomes assessment tool due to their structure, the data collection processes and the inherent nature of the U.S. health care delivery system.