Understanding hospital-based service use and patient outcomes for people diagnosed with cirrhosis: a data linkage study

The aim of this study is to investigate the prevalence of cirrhosis and its undesirable outcomes, as well as its impact on the use of hospital services in a population-wide state-based sample of patients (Qld). We propose to obtain de-identified demographic and clinical data from the Queensland Hospital Admitted Patient Data Collection (QHAPDC), Emergency Department Information System (EDIS), death registry and cancer registry from all patients who were discharged from hospital with cirrhosis, or with a recorded death due to liver cancer or cirrhosis from 2007 to 2016. For this cohort of patients, we propose to collect and analyse data for all hospital admissions over the study period, to describe the burden of cirrhosis and identify patient and health system factors that impact on health outcomes.