The effect of information systems architecture on health care data quality

A rapidly increasing number of health care provider institutions is dealing with data architecture design issues that directly affect the quality of data within their heterogeneous information systems. These problems result from a failure to recognize that they are actually managing a loosely distributed yet integrated database among their many information system platforms. Understanding the issues surrounding data integration, the application available interface standards, and the tools available for implementation is critical to operating a successful distributed health care information systems environment today.