Orthopedic Database Demographics

What is the Patient Record Database?

The PearlDiver Patient Record Database contains orthopedic patient data that was collected from a consortium of insurance companies in the United States. Our records are the charging records received by the insurance companies. These records include diagnosis codes, complication codes, procedure codes, demographic information about the patient (although you cannot identify individual patients from our data), as well as charging information.

How did we build the database?

We started with a database that contained all the patient records. From that base, we selected the records that had an orthopedic diagnosis code (as defined by the AMA) in them. We populated the Patient Record Database with the resulting records.

How new is the data?

Our database starts with 2004 patients and as of this writing, includes 2005, 2006 and 2007, and 2008 data. We will be adding 2009 data within the next few months.

How many patients does the Patient Record Database represent?

Generally, the patient base for each year is approximately 20 million patients. In terms of patient records, the numbers are much higher.