Overview

Overview

Going through the paper inpatient and outpatient exercises was very useful.

Previous participant

Hospital episode statistics (HES) contains details of all admissions to NHS hospitals and all NHS outpatient appointments in England and is a main data source for a wide range of healthcare analyses for the NHS, government and many other organisations and individuals. There is also an increasing role for this observational dataset in providing evidence based parameters which are not collectable in trials for the economic evaluation of new technologies.  Admitted patient care data is available from 1989 onwards, with more than 18 million new inpatient records with over 350 data items per record added each year. Outpatient attendance data has been collected since 2003, with more than 40 million new records added each year and the most recent HES data also includes Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) for a limited number of conditions.

However because of the size and complexity of HES, it is one of the most challenging and difficult datasets to get to grips with:  complex coding of data items, data provided at a level which is not immediately amenable to analysis, missing data, duplicates and other data issues mean that the analyst has significant upfront investment costs in learning to come to terms with the data before being able to produce meaningful analyses that are free from common errors.

I really liked the fact that the course gave a really good insight into HES (HES is amazingly complicated!)

Previous participant

Taught by academics with extensive experience in using HES for a wide range of outputs, this intensive workshop introduces participants to HES data and how to handle, manipulate and begin to analyse these very large data sets using computer software. Participants will engage in problem-solving exercises, analysing the information in highly interactive sessions. At the end of the course, the participants should understand the complex nature of the HES datasets, understand the importance of approaching HES with a disciplined programming structure and have the tools required to manipulate and re-code data from the raw form to that required for analysis. 

Objectives

This course includes instruction on how to:

• understand, manage and manipulate the data
• construct and analyse key variables such as waiting times or length of stay
• link inpatient and outpatient HES records together and to other datasets
• analyse individual patient records defined as Finished Consultant, Episodes, Provider Spells and Continuous Inpatient Spells
• monitor emergency readmissions
• aggregate data by Healthcare Resource Group, hospitals, and groups of general practices
• evaluate Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMS) 
• use the data for benchmarking and policy evaluation  

The tutors have worked extensively with HES data and will guide participants through the potential pitfalls using case studies, practical examples and problem-solving exercises.

Prerequisites

This workshop is now offered to people working not only in the public sector or academia but also the private sector.  It is suitable for analysts who wish to harness the power of non-randomised episode level patient data to shed further light on such things as patient costs and pathways, re-admissions and outcomes and provider performance.  The workshop is suitable for individuals working in NHS hospitals, commissioning organisations and the Department of Health, pharmaceutical companies or consultancy companies and for health care researchers and PhD students.  Overseas applicants may also find the tuition can be applied to similar scenarios in their own country.

Participants should have some knowledge of introductory statistics and familiarity with computer software such as Excel, Access, SPSS, SAS or Stata.

We shall be using Stata during the workshop, the reason being that the data manipulation and analyses we shall be performing require a powerful statistical package. More information about Stata is available here www.stata.com/whystata/.  On the registration form, indicate if you will attend the Stata introduction session. 

Course dates

Course dates

• Monday 28 - Wednesday 30 May 2012

Programme

Course programme

Day 1: Monday 28 May 2012  

• Registration  opens 09:30.
• Introduction to computer software: Stata. (Optional: indicate attendance (or not) on the online registration form.) Starts 10:00. 
• Registration for those not attending optional Stata session: opens 12:00.
• Introduction to HES datasets. HES inpatient records: episodes, provider spells, and continuous inpatient spells. The data dictionary. Important fields. Examining an example HES extract. Starts 13:00, after lunch (included) 
• Data manipulation. Understanding and using key variables: age, waiting times, admission method, diagnostic and HRG codes.
• Welcome and drinks reception. 

Day 2: Tuesday 29 May 2012

• Data Manipulation (contd). Missing values, dealing with dates and identifying duplicate records and common HES data errors.
• Linking patient episodes. Constructing continuous inpatient spells.
• Identifying and analysing emergency and hospital readmissions.
• Introduction to the outpatient minimum dataset.
• Workshop dinner in York's city centre.

Day 3: Wednesday 30 May 2012

• Examining outpatient data, including DNAs, first GP referrals and waiting times.
• Analysing Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMS)
• Provider comparisons (using HES to benchmark providers)
• Workshop ends 15:30.

Presenters

Presenters

The tutors for this course will be:

• Chris Bojke
  senior research fellow
• Silvio Daidone
  research fellow
• Mark Dusheiko
  research fellow
• Nils Gutacker
  research fellow
• Rita Santos
  research fellow
• Andrew Street
  professor 

Registration

Registration

Registration is managed online: Registration

Fees

Fees are fully inclusive of tuition, lunches, drinks reception, course dinner and course materials, but do not include accommodation. VAT is not payable. Transferring between courses is not possible.

A limited number of subsidised places are available to full time PhD students. If applying, you are required to provide a summary of your research project (max. 300 words), together with the registration form. These places are allocated at the discretion of the organisers

Cancellations and alterations

A full refund of course fees (less 10% administrative charge) will be made for cancellations received in writing at least one month prior to the workshop. Substitutes can be made but please email new delegate's details when known to Gillian Robinson. Cancellations made less than one month prior to the workshops are non-refundable/non-changeable.

In the unlikely event that, due to unforeseen circumstances, the course has to be cancelled by the University of York, our liability is limited to refund of workshop fees. We recommend delegates have adequate insurance cover to claim any travel or personal expenses.

Accommodation

A limited amount of accommodation is available on campus, allocated on a first come first served basis. Once registered, the course administrator will give further information on booking direct with York Conferences.  The cost of this accommodation is additional to the course fee.

Alternatively, there are a large number of hotels and guest houses in York. See the YorkPress 'Where to stay' guide for suggestions.