Using a Community of Practice to Enhance Data Quality in a Distributed Healthcare Information System
Abstract
Healthcare provider networks typically have severe budget constraints, which necessitate effective allocation of scarce resources and judicious adoption of expensive advances in medical procedures and treatment regimens. Elective surgery is particularly risky and resource intensive and require information systems that allow judicious decision making at multiple levels –healthcare policy makers, hospital administrators and clinicians. Given the large number of variables and the diversity in the facilities, underlying systems, procedures and personnel, quality of the input data can be threatened. Ensuring data quality for such an information system requires effective organizational practices coupled with technology. This paper studies the role of building a community of practice (CoP) among recording nurses for increasing knowledge sharing to enhance the quality of data collection from surgeries. The study finds support for a CoP in building social capital and increased knowledge sharing, leading to improvement in data quality and downstream impacts on patient care.
Recommended Citation
Ghosh, Biswadip and Scott, Judy E., "Using a Community of Practice to Enhance Data Quality in a Distributed Healthcare Information System" (2009). ACIS 2009 Proceedings. 71.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/acis2009/71