Question

discuss on the benefits that Data Dictionaries can bring in the health sector and give an example

Answer 1

What is a Data Dictionary?

A data dictionary is a collection of information explaining what type of data is managed within a database, its format, arrangement, and how the data is utilized. In many regards, it can be thought of as the edicts in which all the data within your system need to abide by.

Characteristics of Data Dictionary:

1. Linkage over time - Such data permits investigators to link dates and times with patient care events, problems, and diagnoses.
2. Timeliness - Facts based on patient-provider interactions and other relevant information (e.g., employment, health plan, health status, or outcomes) should be entered or updated frequently enough to permit their timely use and analysis. If databases are to be of assistance with direct patient care, then information must be sufficiently up to date that caregivers can rely on it in all clinical decision-making situations.
3. Accuracy and completeness - Data used for clinical care decision making about a given individual must be of far greater accuracy and completeness than those required for administrative uses. Databases used for clinical decision making must, in describing an individual, describe only that individual and do so accurately.
4. Control, ownership, and governance - Whether a given database has been established by the public or the private sector (or is some hybrid) will have important implications for inclusiveness and access.
5. Origin of data - Databases can vary widely in the source(s) of their information.
6. Unique, universal person-identifiers - A unique identifier (1) applies to one and only one person and (2) does not change over time.
7. Unique identifiers for health care providers and practitioners

Benefits of Data Dictionaries in the Health Sector

1. Access - Helps to rectify if people in a given region receiving appropriate care in a timely manner. And if the services are equitably available and affordable by all groups in that population. Know if social and cultural barriers persist and the use of particular types of providers or facilities differ by the patient or consumer characteristics.
2. Expenses - It will help to get the answers to the following questions - Can the rate of increase in aggregate health expenditures be moderated? Can accurate estimates be made of the costs of care in given geographic areas? Can health care delivery and administration be made more efficient? Can administrative costs be reduced? Can cost shifting within the public sector (e.g., between states and the federal government, or from the private to the public sector) be minimized?
3. Quality of care - It will help to get the answers to the following questions - Can the provision of health services be organized so as to increase the likelihood of health outcomes that are desired by individual patients? Can information from these databases address three main quality problems: use of inappropriate and unnecessary services, underuse of appropriate and needed services, and poor technical and interpersonal performance? Can clinical and other information in HDO files contribute to more, and better, practice guidelines? Can credible information about more effective and appropriate health care services be made available to clinicians and institutions in a more timely, and less threatening, fashion? Can useful information about the quality and outcomes of care of different kinds of providers be assembled and made available in convenient and prompt ways to consumers and organizers of provider networks and plans (e.g., insurance companies)?
4. Delivery of health services - Helps to know services that are appropriate and effective for the particular health care problems. Variation of the provision of those services across geographic areas, population groups, types of providers, settings of care, and time.
5. Disease occurrence and public health - It can help to find facts regarding major causes of death, illness, and disability for different groups in the population and the change in patterns over time.
6. Health outlining - It can help to find ways to make the asset, place, operation, and financing of facilities, capital equipment, health personnel, and other resources be made more rational, more affordable, and more active to clear community and regional needs.