Claims data from the Manitoba Health Services Commission on all health care contacts during the 2 years preceding and the 2 years following gallbladder surgery were used to describe the histories of patients prior to cholecystectomy, and to assess surgical outcomes. The study is unique in...

Administrative data are becoming increasingly available to health care researchers across North America and Europe. Such data sources are generally thought to be useful for documenting health care utilization. In this report, data from the provincial health insurance system in Manitoba, Canada...

Information-rich environments in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom have been built using record linkage techniques with population-based health insurance systems and longitudinal administrative data. This paper discusses the issues in extending population-based administrative data from...

During the past several years, budget cuts have forced hospitals in several countries to change the way they deliver care. Gilson (Gilson, L. (1998). Discussion: In defence and pursuit of equity. Social Science & Medicine, 47(12), 1891-1896) has argued that, while health reforms are designed to...

A standard cost list is a listing of recommended costs for a selected group of services. Standard costs are used in economic evaluation studies to eliminate that proportion of cost differences between interventions that are due to cost differences between providers. In this article we provide a...

Comparisons of the health status of 1971 and 1983 samples of elderly persons in Manitoba, Canada suggest that while elderly individuals were living longer in 1983, their health was poorer. This was true in both age- and sex-specific comparisons and in comparisons made of individuals in the two...