Patient's medication information and its special characteristics: a case study of a Finnish primary care organisation

Abstract

Despite the positive effects achieved with Information Technology (IT) use in the healthcare sector, IT solutions do not always increase efficiency or prevent medical errors, and the poor quality of data available is often seen as one of the reasons. The purpose of this paper is to determine the characteristics that ensure the quality of data. More specifically, the paper focuses on the non-technical characteristics that patient-specific medication information should have, and its current situation within a Finnish primary care organisation. To ensure that the development of smooth patient service chains will proceed consensually with data users, and that all the issues related to clinical work are considered, an assessment of the current process of medication information management is required. Though the case organisation uses Electronic Health Record (EHR), often the most important source of information was found to be the patient. It was found that sources of medication data do not always meet the needs of the healthcare professionals. Furthermore, the characteristics of what constitute quality data could not always be found, which has left professionals using their knowledge to fill information gaps.