International Islamic University Malaysia Researchers Report Recent Findings in Electronic Medical Records (Validity of claims database compared with electronic medical record of private health clinics in Malaysia: A Pilot Study): Information Technology – Electronic Medical Records

2022 FEB 16 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- New study results on electronic medical records have been published. According to news reporting out of Kuantan, Malaysia, by NewsRx editors, research stated, “The validity of health insurance claims data in private health sectors has been widely reported in many developed countries to monitor details of private healthcare utilisation. Little is known regarding the data validity of private health care services and insurance claims in Malaysia.”

The news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from International Islamic University Malaysia: “This pilot study aimed to validate the claims data from a private health insurance database, using electronic medical records (EMR) at the private clinics as the gold standard. Patients’ data were retrieved from the PMCare health insurance database from 2016-2019 recorded for International Islamic University Malaysia employees. Patients were sampled from the PMCare database and manually compared with data from EMR of selected private panel clinics. Data were analysed for descriptive statistics using Microsoft Excel 2013. A total of four panel clinics consented to the study, and data were available for 2016, 2017 and 2019. The number of observations obtained from 118 patients (male = 63, female = 55) was 386, with the most common diagnosis reported in the PMCare database was acute upper respiratory tract infection (63.6%). Total accuracy between PMCare and EMR data was 91.5%, with an 8.5% difference or inaccuracy. Percentage accuracy was varied between different clinics (A= 92.6%, B=84.7%, C=98.6%, D=82.6%).”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “Data submitted to PMCare claims by private health clinics had high accuracy (>90%) and is acceptable for research and other applications. Future studies should investigate the differences in clinic-based practice for documenting the identified types of discrepancies to improve the accuracy of private health insurance databases.”

For more information on this research see: Validity of claims database compared with electronic medical record of private health clinics in Malaysia: A Pilot Study. Journal of Pharmacy, 2022,2(1). The publisher for Journal of Pharmacy is IIUM Press, International Islamic University Malaysia.

Our news editors report that more information may be obtained by contacting Nor Hidayah Mohd Taufek, Big Data Research Group, Department of Pharmacy Practice, Kulliyyah of Pharmacy, International Islamic University Malaysia, 25200 Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia. Additional authors for this research include Norny Syafinaz Ab Rahman, Nor Ilyani Mohamed Nazar, Siti Halimah Bux, Che Suraya Zin.

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