Comparison of the quality of patient data collected by hospital and departmental computer systems.

The quality of patient data routinely collected in hospitals is rarely assessed, though by repute it may often be incomplete and inaccurate. To explore their completeness and accuracy, patient data separately collected by a hospital Patient Administration System (PAS) and by a departmental Clinical Information System (CIS) used by clinicians were compared. The results indicate that, although both systems appear to record reliably demographic and administrative data, PAS data are more complete than CIS data. Moreover clinicians and medical records staff seem to use classifications of diagnoses and procedures in profoundly different ways. More attention should be paid to the need to assess and improve data quality. The development of a shared database, used and validated by medical records staff and clinicians alike, may be the best way to achieve this.