Improving record linkage performance in the presence of missing linkage data

Article by:Ong, T. C., Mannino, M. V., Schilling, L. M., & Kahn, M. G. (2014)

Introduction

In the absence of accurate and universal patient identifiers, record linkage methods use non-unique fields to link two or more records belonging to the same individual. These quasi-identifiers (e.g. date of birth, lastname, place of birth, etc) are fields that when combined together may uniquely identify an individual. In the healthcare setting, such identifiers may be missing due to a multitude of reasons, making record linkage very difficult. In relational databases used to store medical records, two or more records are linked using a primary key that must be unique and should not be missing but missing data are the fact of life in healthcare research.