Quality of Electronic Health Record Data on Which We Stand

Digitization of health care data is intended to help build better systems for patient care, decision-making, care coordination, quality improvement, safety, risk management, research, billing, and more. The largest volume of digitized health care data can be found in electronic health records (EHRs). The strength of EHRs lies in their digitization and the volume of continually collected data, which encompass demographically diverse populations and include health and treatment factors such as comorbidities, polypharmacy, and variations in care provided.¹ 

The value of EHR data in building better systems stems from EHRs’ foundation of data quality.²  Vimalachandran et al²  state that an EHR system “must enable efficient availability of meaningful, accurate and complete data to assist improved clinical administration through the development, implementation and optimisation of clinical pathways. Therefore data integrity is the driving force in EHR systems and is an essential aspect of service delivery at all levels.”...