How to Use Health Insurance Data Effectively for Healthcare Research

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to present an understanding of the structure and characteristics of health insurance data, which should be basically known in order to use this data more effectively to derive more accurate research results across health and medical care, and an effective use method based on it. Methods: The National Health Insurance Sharing Service and Healthcare Big data open system was reviewed to suggest the structure and characteristics of health insurance data and an efficient use method, and Google Scholar and the Korean Studies Information Service System were used to review the overall application method according to the characteristics of healthcare big data and related literature. Results: The types and characteristics of each research data for public use provided by National Health Insurance Service (NHIS), Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service (HIRA), and the differences between the data of the two institutions were compared and presented. In addition, for the efficient use of health insurance data in healthcare research, understanding the structure and characteristics of health insurance data based on the health insurance system, clear operational definition of analysis variables, adjust bias between comparison groups in case-control study, and the interpretation of analysis results suggest that both statistical and clinical significance should be considered. Conclusions: It is very important to understand the structure and characteristics of health insurance data based health insurance system. And if we consider in more depth ways to efficiently utilize the health insurance data presented in this study, it will be of great help to future researchers and to improve the quality of the research.