Lovelace Patient Database

The Lovelace Patient Database contains comprehensive, longitudinal health care data from two managed care populations. It is a versatile and useful research tool for the conduct of pharmacoeconomic, health services, health care cost, health care utilization, quality management, disease prevalence, disease management, and epidemiological studies. The Center for Outcomes Research (COR), a division of Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute,  welcomes collaborative research proposals that take advantage of these rich data to improve understanding of important health access, utilization, outcomes, and cost issues.

Key Capabilities:

• Longitudinal Data:  The Database currently contains 13 years of health care data from a 240,000-member managed care organization in New Mexico (Lovelace Health Systems/Lovelace Health Plan, a staff and network model HMO).
• Data Content:  Patient enrollment; demographics; inpatient, outpatient, and pharmacy claims; and laboratory outcomes for general and microbiology lab tests.
• Linked Files:  Data are cross-linked in relational files, so complete episodes of care and longitudinal data for cases/controls, cohorts, and broader populations are available for study.
• Clean Data:  Extensive normalizing, grooming, and quality assurance routines are applied to ensure clean, accurate and meaningful data.
• Staff communicate regularly with clinicians, medical coders, and medical record specialists. This ensures data used for research are interpreted correctly and provides valuable insight into organizational norms, physician practice patterns, coding practices, and data validity.