Augmenting fact and date of death in electronic health records using internet media sources: a validation study from two large healthcare systems.

This study evaluated death ascertainment from publicly available internet sources for patients in two large tertiary care US healthcare systems, Mass General Brigham (MGB) and Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), benchmarked against state and federal vital statistics data. Names, dates of bi...

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Publicado en:American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 195; no. 4; pp. 1120 - 1129
Autores principales: LeNoue-Newton, Michele, Al-Garadi, Mohammed, Ngan, Kerry, Pillai, Haritha, Reeves, Ruth M, Park, Daniel, Westerman, Dax M, Hernández-Muñoz, José J, Wang, Xi, Kuzucan, Aida
Formato: research tables/charts Journal Article
Publicado: Oxford University Press / USA Apr2026
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      dt: Apr2026
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      pub: Oxford University Press / USA
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        atl: Augmenting fact and date of death in electronic health records using internet media sources: a validation study from two large healthcare systems.
      aug:
        au:
          LeNoue-Newton, Michele
          Al-Garadi, Mohammed
          Ngan, Kerry
          Pillai, Haritha
          Reeves, Ruth M
          Park, Daniel
          Westerman, Dax M
          Hernández-Muñoz, José J
          Wang, Xi
          Kuzucan, Aida
        affil: Department of Biomedical Informatics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States
      sug:
        subj:
          Death Certificates
          Electronic Health Records
          Internet Utilization
          Tertiary Health Care
          Natural Language Processing
          Medical Record Linkage
          Vital Statistics
          Human
          Funding Source
          United States
          Male
          Female
          Validation Studies
          Social Media
          Descriptive Statistics
          Data Analysis Software
          False Positive Results
          Male
          Female
      ab: This study evaluated death ascertainment from publicly available internet sources for patients in two large tertiary care US healthcare systems, Mass General Brigham (MGB) and Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), benchmarked against state and federal vital statistics data. Names, dates of birth, and dates of death were extracted from 8.1 million internet media records using previously developed natural language processing models. Internet records were matched to 78 848 deceased patients from MGB and VUMC on first name, last name, and date of birth. Dates of death were validated against state vital statistics databases or the National Death Index as reference standards. We calculated sensitivity and positive predicted values (PPV) of internet sources in identifying dates of death within 7 days of the reference standard. Exact matching of records between internet media and reference standards on first name, last name, and date of birth, resulted in 30 067 (38.8%) matches, which showed PPV for death identification (98.2%—MGB; 98.9%—VUMC) in internet media and increased sensitivity of death capture over EHR alone by 24% at MGB and 18% at VUMC. In conclusion, using internet sources to augment mortality data increased capture of death meaningfully over reliance on EHR records alone.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype:
        research
        tables/charts
        Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
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