Electronic Health Records: An Audit and Internal Control Guide

CHAPTER 6

Data-Driven Health Decisions in an E-Health Environment

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

—WINSTON CHURCHILL (1874–1965), BRITISH POLITICIAN

Data-driven decision-making models are emerging in almost every industry sector. This chapter will provide examples of the types of models used in healthcare as well as those models used by other industries that the healthcare industry can learn from. Data, as explained in Chapter 4, is defined and undefined information and appears in various formats, such as captured results, statistics, and records.

E-health transmits information, once confined to paper, into a virtual world. In the context of e-health, the term driven refers to the purposeful capture of data elements to provide the necessary understanding to achieve a particular goal, objective, or purpose. E-health therefore drives electronically programmed and stored data elements related to active functions and operations within the healthcare continuum to derive a conclusion, a judgment, or a determination.

E-health creates the cyber-infrastructure required for a truly interoperable environment for current and emerging market players within the HCC. A fragmented data infrastructure transferred into a fragmented digital world will provide little tangible value and merely overwhelm our current system. The key to an effective, data-driven decision-making ...