Health Services Data: Managing the Data Warehouse: 25 Years of Experience at the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy

Abstract

The “Data Repository” at the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy (MCHP) is a cornerstone of the organization and one of the three “pillars” on which it stands (the other two being Research Program and Knowledge Translation). For 25 years, MCHP has maintained one of the most extensive collections of government administrative, survey, and clinical data holdings in the world, including everything from hospital and medical claims to child welfare services and educational enrolment and outcomes. Over 70 different government and clinical databases flow into the organization on an annual basis. This chapter outlines how the data are collected, organized, documented, managed, and accessed in a privacy protecting fashion for use by researchers in Canada, North America, and around the world. The research conducted by MCHP, which is located in the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba, in addition to being relevant to policy and government decision makers is regularly published in leading academic journals. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the relative strengths of using a population-based longitudinal registry and some of the challenges faced in organizing and using available data for research purposes.