The use of administrative data to identify inpatient complications is technically feasible and inexpensive but unproven as a quality measure. Our objective was to validate whether a screening method that uses data from standard hospital discharge abstracts identifies complications of care and potential quality problems.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Charles A Dana Research Institute, and the Harvard-Thorndike Library, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA. saul_weingart@caregroup.harvard.edu
