DATA

The data component of the IT asset is composed of the following:

• Data recorded on some medium
• Organizationally defined data-coding conventions, standards, and definitions, such as systematized nomenclature of medicine (SNOMED) codes, ZIP codes, and standards for identifying whether a physician is a primary care provider or not
• Policies, procedures, and management mechanisms that guide the capture, cleaning, and use of data
• Technologies that capture, store, and support the access and analysis of data (for example, database management systems and BI software)

Data Characteristics

Organizational data have five critical characteristics:

1. They must be accurate. Data that are accurate capture, with tolerable error, the true state of some phenomenon, activity, or thing. If the data say that 24 percent of a provider organization’s patients are subscribers of one health plan, that data should be a fair reflection of the truth.