Problem on Poor-Quality Data
A health care organization cannot have high-quality health care information without first establishing that it has high-quality health care data.
Medical Records Institute (MRI) identified 5 major functions that are negatively affected by poor-quality documentation (MRI, 2004).
1. Patient safety is affected by inadequate information, illegible entries, misinterpretations, and insufficient interoperability.
2. Public safety, a major component of public health, is diminished by the inability to collect information in a coordinated, timely manner at ye provider level in response to epidemics and the threat of terrorism.
3. Continuity of patient care is the adversely affected by the lack of shareable information among patient care providers.
4. Health care economics are adversely affected, with information capture and report generation costs currently estimated to be well over USD 50 billion annually.
5. Clinical research and outcomes analysis is adversely affected by a lack of uniform information capture that is needed to facilitate the derivation of data from routine patient care documentation.