Measuring and comparing data quality in electronic health care records

The quality of information depends on the quality of data from which it is derived, but data are of high quality only if they are fit for their intended use. Although electronic health records are collected mainly for patient care and audits, their use in research can also greatly benefit the quality of life of patients. The aim of this workshop is to discuss the challenges and issues involved with measuring data quality in electronic health records for epidemiological and clinical research. Although there has been a vast amount of literature on data quality in general, there exists no common framework or methodology for defining and comparing data quality in medical databases used for research. In this workshop we shall share our experiences of assessing data quality in primary care databases and discuss and develop a suggested framework that can help ensure compatibility of data quality measures for different European primary care databases. We shall also discuss how best to use this framework and the results of our investigations to help data contributors improve the quality of data at source.