Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #103693

B. Josea Kramer, PhD¹, Delight E. Satter, MPH², Debra Saliba, MD, MPH¹, Judith O. Harker, PhD¹, MingMing Wang, MPH¹, Bruce Finke, PhD³, and Tuyen Hoang, PhD¹. (1) Veteran's Administration, 16111 Plummer Street (11E), Sepulveda, CA 91343, (2) Center for Health Policy Research, University of California, Los Angeles, 10911 Weyburn Avenue, Suite 300, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1772, 310-794-2691, delight@ucla.edu, (3) Elder Care Intiative, IHS, 45 Vernon Street, Nrth Hampton, MA 01060

Administrative data are increasingly being used to describe potential disparities in healthcare access, quality and outcomes. American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) veterans may be eligible to receive care at both Veterans Administration (VA) and IHS. These two federal healthcare agencies have entered into a strategic planning agreement to improve access and care coordination for this population. Accuracy of administrative data to support this initiative was evaluated in the context of a small-scale pilot study. Linking administrative data from both the VA and IHS for FY 99 and FY00, we compared demographic information on dual users for race and for veteran status. VA may have miscoded as many as 15% of veterans as non-Indian and as many as 84% of active duty patients as non-Indian. IHS miscoded 5% of patients who were veterans as non-veterans. Twenty-six per cent (n = 66) of the veterans used both the VA and IHS, dual users were significantly older (62.7 ± 15.4 years) than veterans who used IHS only (53.2 ± 16.1 years). Most dual users (96%) were low-income and eligible for no-cost or low cost services at the VA. Twenty-nine per cent of dual users were permanently and totally disabled with incomes so low that VA further qualified them to receive a non-service connected pension. To optimize opportunities for care and coordination between VA and IHS, the AIAN veteran population must be accurately classified. The project team is now conducting a national study, national demographic findings will be presented.

Learning Objectives:

• Discuss the importance in administrative data for the measurement of healthcare access, quality and outcomes;
• Describe the benefits of data linkage projects;
• Assess opportunities for improvement in classification of race and veteran status in administrative databases.

Keywords: American Indians, Veterans

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.