Data Quality Assessment in Emergency Medical Services: What Are the Stakeholders' Perspectives?

Introduction: Emergency care is usually conducted within limited time and with limited resources. During emergency care processes, data quality issues should be taken into account. The aim of this study was to assess the quality of emergency care data from the perspectives of different data stakeholders.

Method: This survey study was conducted in 2017. In this research, the viewpoints of three groups of data stakeholders, including data producers, data collectors, and data consumers, were collected regarding data quality in emergency care services. Data were collected by using a standard information quality assessment questionnaire.

Results: The mean values for each dimension of data quality were as follows: sound data (6.23), dependable data (6.28), useful data (6.30), and usable data (6.35), with 0 being the lowest possible score and 10 being the highest. The role gap analysis suggested a clear gap between data producers and data customers at the university level.

Conclusion: Overall, data quality in emergency medical services was not at a high level. Although data quality was improving, the levels of data completeness, compatibility, and usability were low. To improve the usability of emergency medical service data, more attention should be paid to the dimensions of accuracy, completeness, and consistency of data sources.