Building The National Database On Renal Replacement Therapy Focused On The Individual: Probabilistic Record Linkage Of Death Registries At The High Complexity Procedures Authorization Subsystem (Apac/Sia/Sus) And At The Mortality Information System (Sim) - Brazil, 2000-2004

Record linkage has been used to integrate healthcare information systems. In this descriptive study in Brazil, records, from 2000 to 2004, of a National Database on Renal Replacement Therapy (TRS) - built from the data available at the High Complexity Procedures Authorization Subsystem (Apac) of the Outpatient Information System/National Health System (SIA/SUS) - were linked to data available at the Mortality Information System (SIM) in order to compare and complement mortality information on both TRS and SIM. The records of 176,773 patients available at TRS were linked with 4,636,197 records available at SIM. The process has consisted of three stages, one deterministic and two probabilistic. The match of 97.3% of records from both systems found by two clerical reviewers (who agreed completely on their evaluation) shows the potential use of Apac - a yet little used system - when integrated to other health information systems to help organize information per patient.