AHIMA is urging its members to place particular emphasis on the importance of data governance. Information governance is particularly important when pulling from multiple data sources in order to ensure data integrity – the classic "garbage in, garbage out" philosophy.
While 65 percent of respondents to the AHIMA survey said their organizations understand the need to formalize information governance practices, just 43 percent of this segment has done so, and 13 percent has reaped no benefits so far.
Green says health information managers tend to pay close attention to coding and demographic data, but that is not good enough for analytics based on clinical records. "I don't think we have taken a holistic view," she says. Nor do many organizations fully understand that they need to maintain the integrity of data throughout the entire lifecycle in which that information is used.
Information governance is not all that different than any other form of governance in terms of principles to follow, according to Green. Health systems should set rules for data accountability, transparency, integrity, security, regulatory and standards compliance, availability, retention and disposition, she says.
"It's critical to have an accurate picture of your business performance," Green says.
This might be a daunting task, but it is critical to success of any BI program. As Adams points out, the more people that get involved with analytics, the more chance for error. Some don't know that they're dealing with garbage so they make decisions based on bad data, or they will figure out that it's bad only after wasting a lot of time. "Then you lose a lot of credibility within your organization," Adams says.
"Healthcare data is so complex that you can't govern every piece of data all the time," he says, but it is possible to simplify the task. Adams notes that in developing its own information governance strategy, Mayo Clinic was able to whittle its list of prioritized data points from an unwieldy 400 down to a more manageable 40 or so.
"One of the rookie mistakes," according to Adams "is trying to take on the world."
