Chronic Diseases and Multimorbidity in Iran: A Study Protocol for the Use of Iranian Health Insurance Organization’s Claims Database to Understand Epidemiology, Health Service Utilization, and Patient Costs

Abstract

The burden of chronic diseases and multimorbidity is continue to increase, especially in developing countries, but little comprehensive population-based data exist related to their epidemiology and associated healthcare utilization and costs. Our aim is to estimate incidence rate, prevalence, and trend of common chronic diseases and clusters of multimorbidity among East Azerbaijan’s Health Insurance Organization (EAHIO) enrollees applying adopted and updated pharmacoepidemiological approach and to analyze outpatient health service utilization patterns and associated costs among this population using outpatient claims database. Other objective is to identify challenges in healthcare service management in chronic diseases and multimorbidity from the perspectives of experts, benefiting from quantitatively extracted evidences as real-world evidence. It’s time to appreciate the value of, and make use of, available administrative individual-level datasets, such as claims databases, for management of current epidemiological phenomenon, i.e., multimorbidity. The database of our study can be supplemented through linkage with other possible sources of data with more demographical, socio-economical and clinical data to provide more comprehensive picture of chronic diseases and multimorbidity and associated healthcare utilization and expenditure. Counterparts of this kind of dataset may be found in other countries. Results of replication of our project in other countries, even developed nations, could be highly beneficial for key healthcare decision makers in managing CCs and multimorbidities.