Potholes in the information highway: the use of health service utilization data by Alberta health care managers.

Reviews and consultations with regional health authority decision makers have indicated that both data quality and access can limit effective use of health services information when assessing outcomes, planning changes, testing solutions and making decisions. To further a more system-wide understanding of these data utilization issues, we asked senior managers, board members and information analysts in Alberta regional health authorities (n = 111) about the availability of, organizational supports for and barriers to the use of health service utilization data. Eighty percent of respondents stated that the lack of data impeded problem resolution, and 83 percent of managers stated that health service data alerted them to new problems. Examples of useful data related to good standardization and linkage of data sets, or to capacity for valid comparison and trending. Given the limitations highlighted in relation to meeting even the simplest needs of standardization, linkage, comparison and trending, Alberta health care managers indicate frustration in trying to use health service data as currently construed and distributed, particularly within their current frameworks and fast-paced timelines for decision making.