Methodology for assessing the quality of electronic medical records data

Abstract. Background. The key functionality of the medical information system (MIS) is the maintenance of electronic medical records (EMR), which play an integral role in modern healthcare practice, allowing medical organizations to consistently collect, systematize and provide medical professionals with access to information on the diagnosis and treatment of patients. Despite the existence of a large volume of accumulated EMRs and a long history of their design and development, modern EMRs have a rather low quality of clinical information collected in them. Currently, there is no recommended approach to assessing the quality of EMR data.

Objective. To develop a methodology for assessing the quality of data contained in EMRs.

Materials and methods. Requirements for the procedure of EMR data quality assessment and calculation of the quality index based on the results of such procedure were collected and systematized. Based on the requirements, a methodology for data quality assessment was formed, approaches to its practical implementation were worked out for each stage of the methodology and specific examples of quality criteria calculations for the most common basic elements of EMC were given.

Results. The paper presents a methodology for assessing the quality of EMR data, as well as an algorithm for calculating the final quality indices based on the Webiomed platform data. The methodology allows us to obtain not only an integral quality assessment, but also its components assessing different data quality parameters, as well as to detail the quality assessment
for different EHRs elements.

Conclusion. The developed methodology allows to evaluate the basic elements of the EHRs. The proposed methodology also
provides an approach and an algorithm for extending to any additional element of the EHRs.