Grupo Alarcos · Book chapter · 2023
Data Governance in the Health Sector
Alberto Freitas, Julio Souza, Ismael Caballero Muñoz-Reja
Governing data in the health sector is of the utmost importance to warranty an adequate assistance to patients and as support for the healthcare management services. However, data governance of the health data must face several challenges and constraints: data complexity, data privacy and security, traceability of patient data, interoperability and standardization, or the need to provide timely data access. One of the most important activities in healthcare data management is the coding of medical data given that it is the basis for several activities ranging from hospital reimbursement to clinical research. As it has been reported through literature, several issues have been identified related to coding clinical data, which typically derive from inadequate levels of quality leading to some inacceptable situations in healthcare organizations, impacting even to their sustainability. In this chapter, we present the framework CODE.CLINIC, developed in Portugal to guide organizations in their efforts to govern coded clinical data. The framework consists of two main components, which are based on the Alarcos’ Model for Data Maturity (MAMD): a Process Reference Model (PRM) and a Process Assessment Model (PAM). The chapter describes the CODE.CLINIC PRM and introduces an overview of the 16 processes grouped in 4 blocks (strategic, main, support, and other processes).