The Quality and Veracity of Digital Data on Health: from Electronic Health Records to Big Data

Abstract

The quality of health information online depends on our ability to assess whether it is accurate, whether we are making this assessment as citizens/patients or whether we are using predictive software tools. There is a vast literature on the quality of health data online, and it suggests that the various tools for ensuring such quality are not fully adequate. I propose to address this problem by getting technological, organizational, and legal tools to work synergistically together. Integral to this vision―across all three elements―is the training needed for professionals delivering healthcare services as well as for patients using and generating health information online.

Keywords

• digital health data
• big data
• quality of health data
• veracity of data
• provenance
• XML standard