Confidence in the quality of the statistical information it produces is a survival issue for the quality department in a health care organization. If its information becomes suspect, the credibility of the department is called into question and its reputation as a source of trustworthy information is undermined. But data quality is not an easily defined concept. The quality manager’s traditional concern for accuracy must be replaced by a broader context. In recent years the term quality has taken on a larger meaning that encompasses data accuracy, appropriateness of statistical methods, and fitness of the final product in meeting the needs of varied users. Since the needs of information users are the primary factor driving data collection activities in the quality department, meeting these needs must be as much a priority as data accuracy. Accuracy is important, but without attention to the other dimensions of quality, accuracy alone will not satisfy users.

Below is a list of data quality considerations. Can you answer YES to these questions?

1. Are you producing relevant information? Is the information on the right topics? The information should answer questions that are of particular interest to senior leaders, managers, and practitioners. Are you utilizing the appropriate concepts for measurement within these topics? These are examples of questions about the relevance of information.
   
   
2. Are relevant topics being measured with sufficient accuracy? Exact measurement can often be expensive, and sometimes impossible, so the issue may be whether an acceptable “margin of error” has been achieved. Is there room for improvement in data quality control? Are nonsampling errors kept to a minimum? This dimension of quality is referred to as accuracy.
   
   
3. How is timely is the information? Accurate information on relevant topics won’t be valuable to users if it arrives after they have to make their decisions. Timeliness of information is another important dimension of its quality. Timeliness to the day may be crucial for key monthly measures, but less important for measures of slowly changing phenomena
   
   
4. Do customers of the quality department know what information is available and how to obtain it? Is it provided in a format that is easy to interpret? Information that users don’t know about, can’t locate, or, having located, can’t use, is not of great value to them. This quality consideration is referred to as accessibility.
   
   
5. Do users understand the properties of the information? To make appropriate use of information people have to know what they have. Does the quality department provide descriptions of the underlying concepts, variables and classifications that have been used, the methods of collection and processing, and its own assessment of the accuracy of the information? This quality property is known as information interpretability.

The quality department must be mindful of all the important dimensions of quality information so that the needs of users can be met. There is an increasing reliance on statistical information by administrative and medical staff leaders. To ensure these people have valid and reliable information, careful attention must be paid to the important dimensions of data quality that are summarized below.

• The relevance of information reflects the degree to which it meets the real needs of users. This quality attribute is concerned with whether the available information sheds light on the issues of most importance to users. Assessing relevance is a subjective matter dependent upon the varying needs of users. A challenge of the quality department is to weigh and balance the conflicting needs of different users to produce information that goes as far as possible in satisfying the most important needs and users within given resource constraints.
  
  
• The accuracy of information is the degree to which the information correctly describes the phenomena it was designed to measure. It is usually characterized in terms of error rates and can be divided into bias (systematic error) and variance (random error) components. It may also be described in terms of the major sources of error that potentially cause inaccuracies.
  
  
• The timeliness of information refers to the delay between the time period or reference point to which the information pertains and the date on which the information becomes available. Timeliness can be a trade-off against accuracy and will influence its relevance.
  
  
• The accessibility of information refers to the ease with which it can be obtained from the quality department. This includes the ease with which the existence of information can be ascertained, as well as the suitability of the form in which the information is provided. The cost of obtaining the information may also be an aspect of accessibility.
  
  
• The interpretability of information reflects the availability of the supplementary information needed by users to interpret and utilize it appropriately. Information that users cannot understand, or can easily misunderstand, has no value and may have negative value.

Copyright 2003 by Brown-Spath & Associates

To Learn More: Patrice L. Spath is available for in-house presentations on this and other health care performance improvement topics. For further details, visit Brown-Spath & Associates on the web at: http://www.brownspath.com or write to: Brown-Spath & Associates, PO Box 721, Forest Grove, OR 97116.

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