The effect of data cleaning on record linkage quality

BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making

Research Article

Anna M Ferrante¹  Sean M Randall¹  James H Boyd¹  James B Semmens¹ 

[1] Centre for Data Linkage, Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute, Curtin University, GPO U1987, Perth, WA, Australia;

关键词: Data cleaning;    Data quality;    Medical record linkage;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6947-13-64

 received in 2013-03-17, accepted in 2013-05-29,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundWithin the field of record linkage, numerous data cleaning and standardisation techniques are employed to ensure the highest quality of links. While these facilities are common in record linkage software packages and are regularly deployed across record linkage units, little work has been published demonstrating the impact of data cleaning on linkage quality.MethodsA range of cleaning techniques was applied to both a synthetically generated dataset and a large administrative dataset previously linked to a high standard. The effect of these changes on linkage quality was investigated using pairwise F-measure to determine quality.ResultsData cleaning made little difference to the overall linkage quality, with heavy cleaning leading to a decrease in quality. Further examination showed that decreases in linkage quality were due to cleaning techniques typically reducing the variability – although correct records were now more likely to match, incorrect records were also more likely to match, and these incorrect matches outweighed the correct matches, reducing quality overall.ConclusionsData cleaning techniques have minimal effect on linkage quality. Care should be taken during the data cleaning process.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Randall et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013