Errors have been identified in the diagnosis data of THL’s Care Register, and the data is currently being reviewed. Incorrect information may have been included in datasets delivered to Findata customers who have received materials from THL’s health care registers (Avohilmo and Hilmo) based on a data permit or data request since May 2024.
What is this about?
Several wellbeing services counties have retrospectively submitted their patients’ long-term diagnoses to the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare’s (THL) healthcare registers (Avohilmo and Hilmo).
THL suspects that these retrospective submissions of long-term diagnoses have been systematically recorded not only as background long-term diagnoses, as intended, but also incorrectly as secondary diagnoses for patient visits or contacts.
As a result, long-term diagnoses that were not actually relevant to the patient’s visit may have been linked to those visits. This may have artificially increased the number of visits recorded as related to chronic illnesses. For example, a visit due to a respiratory infection may also have been recorded as a hypertension-related visit, even though hypertension was not addressed during the visit.
Long-term diagnoses have been incorrectly entered into the wrong data field by at least the following wellbeing services counties:
- South Karelia
- South Ostrobothnia
- South Savo
- Kainuu
- Kanta-Häme
- Central Finland
- Kymenlaakso
- Western Uusimaa
- Päijät-Häme
- Satakunta
What happens next?
THL continues to investigate the situation in cooperation with the wellbeing services counties. For the time being, only limited extractions of diagnosis-related data from Avohilmo and Hilmo will be made for research purposes.
Publicly available database reports (summaries and cubes) will remain accessible during the investigation, as it is important for the data-submitting organisations to be able to view the data they have provided.
We will provide further updates as more information becomes available.