Hospital treatment of acute respiratory infections in Finland
Here, the National Institute for Health and Welfare's open data describing the number of care episodes and the median number of patients with acute respiratory infections is described. The data will be published via THL’s open data API.
Information can also be examined directly from statistical charts. The tables are published as data cubes, which enables the users to select data from the materials.
Data cube: Hospital treatment of acute respiratory infections in Finland
Instructions for the data cube
API address: https://sampo.thl.fi/pivot/prod/api/epirapo/respinfcare.json
Subject area of the data: epirapo
Name of the subject: respinfcare
Description of THL’s open data API
Description of the data
The data includes information on care episodes for acute respiratory infections in Finland since 6 January 2020. The data is based on combined care episode data from the Hilmo Care Register for Health Care and the National Infectious Disease Register, where individual observations are determined primarily at case level.
The care episodes are categorized according to the pathogen data identified for them and the role assessed for the need for this treatment. The data are presented at the weekly and monthly level by age and region. Of all possible combinations of dimensions in the data, only age and area information cannot be viewed.
The data is updated weekly on Tuesdays.
The data has been determined from treatment events recorded as inpatient care in the Care Register where at least one of the ICD-10 main or side diagnosis codes used refers to
- acute respiratory disease: J00–J22, J46
- coronavirus: U07
- selected severe complications of respiratory diseases: J80–J84, J85.1, J86.
The data is divided into primary health care and specialised medical care based on whether the specialisation of care refers to general medicine.
The data is based on the termination notifications in the Care register. With regard to the data from last few weeks, it is possible that the data do not yet cover all actual hospital treatment, especially for long care episodes. The data is updated retrospectively as the termination notifications get entered into the register.
The dimensions and indicators of the data are described in more detail in the tables below.
Indicators
| Indicator | Indicator ID | SID | Description | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inpatient care episodes in specialised medical care started | n_episodes_esh | 769452 | Number of care episodes started during the review period in specialised medical care inpatient units. | Hilmo, National Infectious Diseases Register |
| Inpatient care episodes in primary health care that have begun | n_episodes_pth | 769502 | Number of care episodes started during the review period in the primary health care inpatient units. | Hilmo, National Infectious Diseases Register. |
| Patients in specialised medical care inpatient units (median) | median_patients_esh | 769317 | Median of the number of patients per day in specialised medical care inpatient units during the review period. Both the start and end dates of the care episode are included in the total number of days spent in the patient inpatient unit. | Hilmo, National Infectious Diseases Register. |
| Patients in primary health care inpatient care (median) | median_patients_pth | 769428 | Median of the daily number of patients in primary health care inpatient units during the review period. Both the start and end dates of the care episode are included in the total number of days the patient spent in the inpatient unit. | Hilmo, National Infectious Diseases Register. |
| Number of population | pop | 796335 | Population data by age, time, and region. |
Population Information System. |
Dimensions
| Dimension | Dimension identificator (SID) | Level | Level identificator | Node identificator (SID) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time | yearmonthweek | Week | weeks | Week from Monday to Sunday by week number and year. E.g. Week 01/2022 covers dates from 3 January to 9 January 2022. | |
| Month | month | A month defined from whole weeks based on Monday's date. E.g. January 2022 consists of weeks 01–05 in 2022, covering the dates from 3 January to 6 February 2022. | |||
| The entire follow-up period | root | 769527 | |||
| Pathogen and its role in need of treatment | respinfcauserole | Pathogen | pathogen_role | Care episodes divided according to the laboratory confirmation data from National Infectious Diseases Register and the role of the disease. The patient's Infectious Disease Register observations are combined with care episodes based on their statistical date, so that the statistical date must be no earlier than 14 days before the start of the care episode and no later than 7 days after the start of the treatment period. The examined pathogens include coronavirus, RS virus, and influenza viruses A and B. |
|
| The role of the disease | role | The estimated role of the disease in the need for treatment. This information is defined by the sequence of diagnostic codes for treatment events generated by the care episode. If one or more of the ICD-10 diagnostic codes used in the data extraction conditions have been used as the primary diagnosis in at least one of the records of the treatment event, the care episode is considered to be due to a respiratory tract infection. If the diagnosis codes in question appear throughout the care episode only as secondary diagnoses, the patient is considered to have been treated for some other reason with a respiratory tract infection. | |||
All respiratory tract infections |
root | 817302 | |||
| Age | respinfagegroup | Age group | agegroup | The patient's age in years at the end of the case episode. Divided into age groups of 0–4, 5–14, 15–24,..., 75–84, 85+. | |
| Age groups together | root | 769504 | |||
| Region | ervahyvinvointialue | Wellbeing services county | hyvinvointialue | Wellbeing services county determined from the location data of the care service provider. | |
| Catchment area | erva | Catchment area determined from the location data of the care service provider. The Åland Islands have been included in the TYKS catchment area. | |||
| Entire country | root | 817309 |
Examples of typical data retrievals
- Weekly time series of indicators for hospital care implemented due to coronavirus throughout the country
- Age distribution of new specialized medical care periods by pathogen during the follow-up period throughout the country
Note. The addresses of the cube interface and API are identical, except for the .json suffix before the ? character of the cube interface. The user interface is thus a good tool for creating searches.
You can read more about using the cube interface in the general instructions.
Instructions for the data cube
API logic
Via the interface, data can be retrieved in either CVS or JSON-stat format.
The API is built on dimensions, which are divided into <DIMENSION ID>-<NODE ID> (ID-SID) pairs. Of these, the ID is text and the SID is a series of numbers. They are separated with a hyphen (-). By selecting one or more ID-SID pairs, the view that is under review is selected.
You can find a JSON format list of all available ID-root pairs at: <APIADDRESS>.dimensions.json
The actual data is accessible at the address provided in this format:
<APIADDRESS>?row=<DIMENSION1 ID>-<SID>&column=<DIMENSION2 ID>-<SID>&filter=measure-<INDICATOR ID>.
The necessary number of ID-SID pairs can be added to the row and column variables and the filter in the selected indicator. In the dimension and gauge table, you will find the technical identifiers for the dimensions and the identifiers for the root nodes.
By default, the interface returns the values of the level corresponding to the selected ID-SID pairs and the values of all immediate 'children'. For example, if the ID-SID identifies the root level of the dimension (row sum, all), the row sum and the next finest data are returned by default. The search can be limited to the values of the selected node by adding a period (.) after the SID.
In addition to JSON-stat format, it is also possible to retrieve data in CSV format via the API. You can do this simply by replacing 'json' with 'csv'.
Further information on the JSON-stat format can be found at:
JSON-stat
Contact information
Contacts and inquiries regarding the data can be sent to:
epidemia.avoindata(at)thl.fi
Feedback on the THL cube interface and the open data API can be sent to:
tietojarjestelmat(at)thl.fi
