Healthcare information management: the integration of patients’ data

In a dynamic and uncertain business environment, with increasingly intense competition and vibrant globalisation, there is a growing demand by healthcare businesses for both internal and external information, to analyse patients’ information quickly and efficiently, which has led healthcare organisations to embrace customer relationship management (CRM) systems. Data quality and data integration issues facilitate the achievement of CRM business objectives. Data quality is the state of completeness, validity, consistency, timeliness and accuracy that makes data appropriate for CRM business exploitation. A good integration strategy begins with a thorough data assessment study, and relies upon the quality of these data. A framework is proposed for evaluating the quality and integration of patient data for CRM applications in the health care sector. Even though this framework is in an early stage of development, it intends to present existing solutions for evaluating the above issues.