Health services research in critical care using administrative data

The aim of health services research,is to provide unbiased, scientific evidence to influence health services policy at all. levels. Secondary analysis of administrative. data can be. employed for the purpose of evaluating questions relevant to health services research in the field of critical care. T article provides an overview of the topic and specifically reviews the key components to evaluating a performing research in critical care using administrative data, including how to evaluate the quality administrative data itself,,and also how to evaluate the quality of studies that employ administrative data. The article concludes with a step-wise approach to conducting studies of critical care based administrative data. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.