Bremen Mortality Index
The Bremen Mortality Index (BreMI) is an electronic database providing all information recorded on death certificates of Bremen citizens who have died since 01.01.1998. The legal basis is the Bremen law on mortuary affairs [Bremisches Gesetz über das Leichenwesen] and the ordinance on the mortality index.
BreMI is to be used (examples):
- For the electronic filtering of all death certificate entries with indications of a tumor diagnosis at the time of death
This step is necessary for all cancer registries to find so-called Death Certificate Only (DCO) cases. The Bremen Cancer Registry regularly carries out a comparison with BreMI data and thus receives information on persons who died of or with cancer who had not yet been recorded in the Bremen Cancer Registry.
- For mortality follow-up in cohort studies
If the first permanent residence of a cohort member is in the federal state of Bremen, the individual vital status can be checked at regular intervals via an electronic cross-check with BreMI. For deceased cohort members, BreMI can provide all causes of death including the underlying disease. The Bremen Cancer Registry regularly carries out the mortality follow-up of registered persons via BreMI.
- As a data source for automatic encryption of causes of death
In Germany, the coding of the underlying cause of death for the official mortality statistics in the state statistical offices increasingly occurs automatically. The causes of death registered in BreMI can be used as text strings to supplement the diagnosis thesaurus on which the automatic coding is based.
Funding
- Senator for Health, Women and Consumer Protection of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen
Sabine Luttmann
Head
Contact:
Dr. med. Sabine Luttmann
Tel: +49 (0)421 218-56961
Fax: +49 (0)421 218-56941