{"id":1504690,"date":"2022-02-17T17:16:11","date_gmt":"2022-02-17T21:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthinfocanada.ca\/reimagining-health-data-use-highlights-from-data-and-information-quality-week-2022\/"},"modified":"2024-08-23T10:25:09","modified_gmt":"2024-08-23T14:25:09","slug":"reimagining-health-data-use-highlights-from-data-and-information-quality-week-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthinfocanada.ca\/?p=1504690","title":{"rendered":"Reimagining health data use: Highlights from Data and Information Quality Week 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Data and Information Quality Week, hosted by CHIMA, is an opportunity to celebrate the importance of data and information quality and the health information professionals who contribute to health outcomes across Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, we had the opportunity to host a session presented by Dr. Ewan Affleck, senior medical advisor\u2014health informatics, from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta. Titled \u201cReimagining Health Data Use: Overcoming the Blues,\u201d this session examined the reuse and importance of harmonizing health information in Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharing an experience in Quebec, where a diagnosis was inaccurate because some health information was inaccessible, Dr. Affleck demonstrated that information is \u201cfoundational to the provision of quality care.\u201d According to him, when information sources are removed or fragmented, this can perpetuate \u201cinformational chaos\u201d and have a negative impact on the quality of health care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If information is fundamental to providing quality health care, \u201cwho is in charge of managing health information in Canada?\u201d Dr. Affleck asked. Elaborating on this, he highlighted four things to note in health information management: the governance of health care, health care policies, the regulation of health care, and technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Impairing the continuity of health information, which is an important feature of optimized health information architecture, are legislative hindrances around the safe use of information in Canada. \u201cWe are legislating the fragmentation of patient information, which is damaging people,\u201d said Dr. Affleck. \u201cThere are no substantive industry standards or regulations which promote interoperability.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Affleck touched on the rising cost of health care and the focus on technology, warning that the properties of technology design that will deliver safe, timely, effective, efficient, and equitable patient care are not prioritized. According to him, Covid has revealed problems with the capacity of clinical services, research, innovation, public\/population health, and the management and oversight to use data properly; problems that were pre-existing but are now clearly evident. He posited that a new data architecture, one designed around person-centricity, is required to drive harmonized data interoperability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But all hope is not lost. Dr. Affleck shared that person-centric interoperability is \u201cbeginning to be discussed\u201d and listed the following reasons for optimism:<\/p>\n\n\n\n