Introduction
As information technology has become more advanced and affordable, it has dramatically affected business management practices. With the creation of strategic decision-support information systems, the emphasis has been on data driven business decisions with benchmarking to establish performance measurements. The Military Health System (MHS) strategic plan emphasizes the Department Of Defenses (DoD) commitment to this philosophy. One of its goals is to integrate technologies into best practices designed to . . decrease health care delivery costs, and improve management processes.(Martin, Christopherson, Blanck, Koenig, & Roadman, 1999). Not only is a medical facilitys data being used at the local level but also at the regional and national level for business decisions.
As healthcare costs dramatically increase, fiscal responsibility by healthcare executives is imperative. In addition, military health care executives face the daunting challenge of increased demands and diminishing resources. To effectively meet this challenge, they are basing decisions on cost/benefit analysis to achieve the best solutions (Martin et al ., 1999). Each commands financial management is being closely monitored by its regions TRICARE Management Activity and taken into consideration when budgets are allocated.
Since these solutions are being based on data, it is essential that the data is accurate, timely, and complete. Without quality data, business decisions will be faulty. In 1999, The Assistant Secretary of Defense Dr. Sue Bailey issued a policy for data quality improvement for Military Health System Financial Systems. She emphasized the necessity of quality financial data for making effective business decisions about optimizing facilities, staff, and all other resources. Dr. Bailey mandated the implementation of internal controls which would improve financial and workload data in our health care financing and management systems (Bailey, 1999).
Wilford Hall is complying with this directive and utilizing metrics based decision-making. Hence, they want to ensure they have quality data. Since reducing costs is a major issue, they are reviewing the MHSs cost information system, the Medical Expense and Performance Reporting System (MEPRS). When costs per visit were generated for each of Wilford Halls clinics utilizing MEPRS, it was noted that a number of them appeared to be high. In accordance with the DoD guidelines on data quality management, our team was tasked with conducting a data quality baseline assessment of MEPRS reporting at their facility.
