Concordance of neonatal critical condition data between secondary databases: Florida and Texas birth certificate Linkage with medicaid analytic extract

BACKGROUND: Limited information is available about neonates’ critical conditions data quality. The study aim was to measure the agreement regarding presence of neonatal critical conditions between Medicaid Analytic eXtract claims data and Birth Certificate (BC) records. METHODS: Claims data files of neonates born between 1999–2010 and their mothers were linked to birth certificates in the states of Texas and Florida. In claims data, neonatal critical conditions were identified using medical encounter claims records within the first 30 days postpartum, while in birth certificates, the conditions were identified based on predetermined variables. We calculated the prevalence of cases within each data source that were identified by its comparator, in addition to calculating overall agreement and kappa statistics. RESULTS: The sample included 558,224 and 981,120 neonates in Florida and Texas, respectively. Kappa values show poor agreement (< 20%) for all critical conditions except neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admission, which showed moderate (> 50%) and substantial (> 60%) agreement in Florida and Texas, respectively. claims data resulted in higher prevalences and capture of a larger proportion of cases than the BC, except for assisted ventilation. CONCLUSIONS: Claims data and BC showed low agreement on neonatal critical conditions except for NICU admission. Each data source identified cases most of which the comparator failed to capture, with higher prevalences estimated within claims data except for assisted ventilation.