Comparability

Comparability - geographical

There are no international standards or statistics published by international organizations that are directly comparable to these statistics.

Comparability over time

When preparing the indicators, emphasis has been placed on the fact that the statistics can be compared between the municipalities and over time.

Home care, rehabilitation, home nursing, preventive home visits and training: The indicators for the current year can be compared with previous years. However, reservations are made for municipalities that have not been covered for one or more years. Reservations are also made for the municipalities that change the care system. It can give changed distributions between the numbers. Since some municipalities may be missing, data from previous years are used for these. This can cause uncertainty in regions and the national total. 2011 was the first year that the statistics of provided home care were published. For home nursing in your own home there is data back to 2016. For rehabilitation, 2017 was the first year that the statistics were published.

Housing offer: The indicator was first published for 2009, and in the coming years it will be possible to compare backwards in time.

Readmissions: Data is comparability over time

From 1 October 2023, three new variables were added to the statistics on referred home care, which has led to a data breach. From 1 October 2023, it is mandatory for the municipalities to report food service as a separate service. Previously, food service had to be reported as the benefit "Practical help". In addition, two new supplier types have been added in the form of "Free choice certificate" and "Self-selected helper". During the implementation of these new reporting requirements, it is evident that a number of municipalities have not reported food service previously, which is why comparisons of 2023 with previous years must be made with reservations.

Coherence - cross domain

• Home care: Statistics for referred home care covered by free choice is based on information about people, who are referred to receive home care and the service of home care that is covered by the referral. The municipalities’ reported data with referred and provided home care are compared in the error detection and when contact with the municipalities takes place.
• Free choice of dwelling, preventative home visits, home nursing, rehabilitation and quality of service: There are no other statistics about the subject.
• Readmissions: Statistics Denmark and the Agency of Health publish other yearly statistics that are also built on the register of patients, and those statistics contain information about clinical pathways. It seems that the indicator for length of stay cannot be compared with these statistics as the indicator only covers some chosen diagnosis groups for persons age 67 and older. Information about readmissions cannot be found in other statistics.

Coherence - internal

• In general for home care, preventative home visits, home nursing, training and rehabilitation: For the municipalities that cannot report via their care system, data is received in Excel spreadsheet. It is not always that the spreadsheet is adequate. For instance, the date for first-time referral can be missing in cases where the municipality has sent in Excel spreadsheet for referred time.
• Readmissions: It is provided that the underlying populations are comparable, e.g. in the occurrence of the individual diseases. In Denmark the occurrence of the individual disease differs considerable from municipality to municipality. Moreover, a certain variation in age and sex distribution is seen. Readmissions are only standardized at regional and country level due to the low number of observations at the municipality level. Corrections are not made for the severity of the diseases or in case of competitive diseases, as the necessary data to make such corrections isn't available. Because of the missing corrections direct comparison between the municipalities must be considered carefully.