Informatics tools can help clean up ‘dirty’ data

To mitigate the risks and costs associated with ‘dirty’ radiological data, some organisations implement data management and quality protocols, and use robust informatics tools to detect and correct errors.

PACSHealth says informatics tools such as its VNAHealth can help. “Dirty data refers to inaccuracies, inconsistencies or errors in medical imaging data,” the company says. “So why do these errors occur? There are many and varied reasons: incorrect data entry, lack of standardisation or inconsistencies in the data management process.”

These can be introduced at any stage during the data management process, from image acquisition to data analysis. “Finding them manually is difficult until they appear, often in the worst situations,” PACSHealth continues. “This can result in serious implications for patient care leading to misdiagnosis, incorrect treatment, false reporting, repeated treatments and prolonged patient suffering.”

In real-time, VNAHealth can find: validation failures; duplicate and missing accession numbers; mismatched patient name, DOB, sex, MRN, modality code and study description; validation of study receipts to workstations and PACS systems; and migration errors.

Enterprise imaging informatics integrates various imaging and patient data for easier real-time access and analysis. The real-time data and analytics provided by informatics tools can give managers the information they need to make informed decisions and optimise processes.

Picture: Tools like VNAHealth can enable PACS and healthcare IT administrators to understand the integrity of imaging studies.

Published on page 26 of the March 2023 issue of RAD Magazine.