Quality comparison of electronic versus paper death certificates in France, 2010

Population Health Metrics

Grégoire Rey³  Eric Jougla³  Anne Fouillet²  Agathe Lamarche-Vadel³  Albertine Aouba³  Gérard Pavillon³  Delphine Lefeuvre¹ 

[1] AP-HP, Paris, France;Institut de veille sanitaire, Saint Maurice, France;INSERM, CépiDc, Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France

关键词: Quality;    Electronic certification;    Causes of death;    Death certificate;   

Others  :  802743
DOI  :  10.1186/1478-7954-12-3

 received in 2013-07-15, accepted in 2014-02-11,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Electronic death certification was established in France in 2007. A methodology based on intrinsic characteristics of death certificates was designed to compare the quality of electronic versus paper death certificates.

Methods

All death certificates from the 2010 French mortality database were included. Three specific quality indicators were considered: (i) amount of information, measured by the number of causes of death coded on the death certificate; (ii) intrinsic consistency, explored by application of the International Classification of Disease (ICD) General Principle, using an international automatic coding system (Iris); (iii) imprecision, measured by proportion of death certificates where the selected underlying cause of death was imprecise. Multivariate models were considered: a truncated Poisson model for indicator (i) and binomial models for indicators (ii) and (iii). Adjustment variables were age, gender, and cause, place, and region of death.

Results

533,977death certificates were analyzed. After adjustment, electronic death certificates contained 19% [17%-20%] more codes than paper death certificates for people deceased under 65 years, and 12% [11%-13%] more codes for people deceased over 65 years. Regarding deceased under and over 65 respectively, the ICD General Principle could be applied 2% [0%-4%] and 6% [5%-7%] more to electronic than to paper death certificates. The proportion of imprecise death certificates was 51% [46%-56%] lower for electronic than for paper death certificates.

Conclusion

The method proposed to evaluate the quality of death certificates is easily reproducible in countries using an automatic coding system. According to our criteria, electronic death certificates are better completed than paper death certificates. The transition to electronic death certificates is positive in many aspects and should be promoted.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Lefeuvre et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

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