Strategic Research Partners, LLC, Falmouth, MA, USA.
Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Public Health Rep. 2021 Nov-Dec;136(1_suppl):47S-53S. doi: 10.1177/00333549211011626.
Studies describing linkage of ambulance trips and emergency department (ED) visits of patients with opioid-related overdose (ORO) are limited. We linked records of patients experiencing ORO from ambulance trip and ED visit records in Massachusetts during April 1-June 30, 2017.
We estimated the positive predictive value of ORO-capturing definitions by examining the narratives and triage notes of a sample of OROs from each data source. Because of a lack of common unique identifiers, we deterministically linked OROs to records in the counter data set on date of birth, incident date, facility, and sex. To validate the linkage strategy, we compared ambulance trip narratives with ED triage notes and chief complaints for a sample of pairs.
Of 3203 ambulance trips for ORO and 3046 ED visits for ORO, 82% and 63%, respectively, matched a record in the counter data set on date of birth, incident date, facility, and sex. In 200 randomly selected linked pairs from a final linked data set of 3006 paired records, only 5 (3%) appeared to be false matches.
This exercise demonstrated the feasibility of linking ORO records between 2 data sets without a unique identifier. Future analyses of the linked data could produce insights not available from analyzing either data set alone. Linkage using 2 rapidly available data sets can actively inform the state's public health opioid overdose response and allow for de-duplicating counts of OROs treated by ambulance, in an ED, or both.
描述与阿片类药物相关过量（ORO）患者的救护车出行和急诊部（ED）就诊之间关联的研究有限。我们在 2017 年 4 月 1 日至 6 月 30 日期间，将马萨诸塞州的患者发生 ORO 的救护车出行和 ED 就诊记录与患者记录进行了关联。
我们通过检查来自每个数据源的 ORO 的样本的叙述和分诊记录，来估计 ORO 捕获定义的阳性预测值。由于缺乏共同的唯一标识符，我们通过出生日期、事件日期、机构和性别将 ORO 确定性地与对照数据集的记录进行了关联。为了验证链接策略，我们比较了一组样本中救护车旅行叙述和 ED 分诊记录和主要投诉。
在 3203 次 ORO 救护车出行和 3046 次 ORO ED 就诊中，分别有 82%和 63%在出生日期、事件日期、机构和性别方面与对照数据集的记录相匹配。在最终的 3006 对记录的配对数据集中，随机选择了 200 对匹配记录，其中只有 5 对（3%）似乎是错误匹配。
这项工作证明了在没有唯一标识符的情况下，在两个数据集之间链接 ORO 记录的可行性。对链接数据的未来分析可以提供仅分析任何一个数据集都无法获得的见解。使用两个快速可用的数据集进行链接，可以积极为该州的公共卫生阿片类药物过量反应提供信息，并允许对在 ED 或两者都接受 ORO 治疗的救护车出行进行去重计数。
