Information governance standards for managing e-health information

Integrity of patient information, from both a quality and a security perspective, is critical to patient care. In the UK, the information governance initiative of the National Health Service (NHS) provides a framework to monitor and control the management of confidential patient data. Information governance standards grew out of the Data Accreditation Programme, first proposed in the 1998 NHS document Information for Health. The Data Accreditation Programme was based on a three-stage assessment of data quality in acute hospitals. Stage one required internal review of policy and procedures for data input into computerized patient administration systems. Stage two involved an external audit to verify compliance with the standards. Stage three mandated audits of data outputs, focusing on clinical coding quality. Before stage three of the programme was fully implemented, the standards were incorporated into the information governance initiative, in which standards were expanded to include primary care and other health-care settings. These standards address many information management issues, including security and data quality, which are key concerns in telemedicine and e-health applications. Compliance is essential for the successful implementation of the NHS Care Records Service, which will allow sharing of electronically stored patient information across the UK.