Data collection

STAKES collects the data annually from hospitals' administrative registers in conjunction with the data collection for the National Hospital Discharge Register. The data comprises information on all discharges and outpatient visits, including diagnoses and procedure codes, at virtually all public hospitals in Finland. The data for one calendar year comprises altogether 1 million admissions and 4 million outpatient visits including out-of-hours visits. In addition, hospitals provide separate data on their costs at hospital and speciality level.

Data processing

The data processing at STAKES starts with the checking and grouping of the data into DRGs (Diagnostic Related Groups). DRG -grouping has a twofold role in the project. It is necessary both for adjusting for hospital case-mix and for viewing indicators at the DRG level. Out of the data, care episodes are formed and a large number of various indicators are calculated. Finally, the results are distributed to the participating hospitals via the Internet. Data collection and processing figure (pdf 72kb).