Quality data, design, implementation, and governance

Data is the core for digital health systems; that data needs to be accurate, consistent, and available. The health workforce needs to understand how to define and govern data quality throughout the data supply chain, from origin through sharing, aggregated reporting, and eventually to enable the discovery of new knowledge based upon that data. Data quality applies to the data supply chain as a whole. Data needs to be collectable and useful at origin and able to represent and explain things that may not be known at the time of collection. Consistency of concept representation throughout the data supply chain needs to be clearly specified and transparent. Professional bodies need to provide leadership into the specification and governance of data, information, and computable knowledge, augmenting their traditional role of knowledge acquisition and publication based upon evidence. Throughout all levels of healthcare, the necessity of data quality needs to be better understood and managed.