An analysis of linked pre-hospital and hospital data
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Analysing Emergency and Urgent Care System Demand in Yorkshire and Humber: A data linkage study of pre-hospital and emergency department data.
IRAS ID
157633
Contact name
Suzanne Mason
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Sheffield Teaching Hospital NHS Trust
Research summary
This study aims to collect routine NHS data from a number of providers of emergency and urgent care (EUC) in Yorkshire and Humber and link the data to provide a coherent picture of emergency and urgent care demand for a period of 12 months. There is currently a lack of data to provide a detailed picture of the characteristics of demand in the EUC system. Individual provider data exists, such as ambulance 999 and emergency department (ED), but there has been no attempt to link data across different providers to show patient flow through the system, in order to understand how the system is used from the point of contact (such as a call to 999/NHS 111) through different parts of the system (into ED and into hospital). This study will use data from the Yorkshire Ambulance Service (incident details from calls to 999 and NHS 111) and link it with hospital data (ED/Inpatient) from a number of trusts to analyse patient demand through these parts of the system. The analysis will assess the types of patients (age, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic profile, clinical groups) accessing the system and analyse patterns of use by these patient characteristics over the 12 months of data capture. This information will provide a basis for understanding demand, where the pressure exists in the EUC system and who is applying the pressure to services. This will be the starting point for determining which services and which patients should be targeted for interventions to reduce pressure on services and provide more appropriate care for patients.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Sheffield Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/YH/1139
Date of REC Opinion
15 Sep 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion