Information quality frameworks for digital health technologies: systematic review

Background: Digital health technologies (DHTs) generate a large volume of information used in health care for administrative, educational, research, and clinical purposes. The clinical use of digital information for diagnostic, therapeutic, and prognostic purposes has multiple patient safety problems, some of which result from poor information quality (IQ).

Objective: This systematic review aims to synthesize an IQ framework that could be used to evaluate the extent to which digital health information is fit for clinical purposes.

Methods: The review was conducted according to the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis) guidelines. We searched Embase, MEDLINE, PubMed, CINAHL, Maternity and Infant Care, PsycINFO, Global Health, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global, Scopus, and HMIC (the Health Management Information Consortium) from inception until October 2019. Multidimensional IQ frameworks for assessing DHTs used in the clinical context by health care professionals were included. A thematic synthesis approach was used to synthesize the Clinical Information Quality (CLIQ) framework for digital health.

Results: We identified 10 existing IQ frameworks from which we developed the CLIQ framework for digital health with 13 unique dimensions: accessibility, completeness, portability, security, timeliness, accuracy, interpretability, plausibility, provenance, relevance, conformance, consistency, and maintainability, which were categorized into 3 meaningful categories: availability, informativeness, and usability.

Conclusions: This systematic review highlights the importance of the IQ of DHTs and its relevance to patient safety. The CLIQ framework for digital health will be useful in evaluating and conceptualizing IQ issues associated with digital health, thus forestalling potential patient safety problems.

Trial Registration: PROSPERO International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews CRD42018097142; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=97142

International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID): RR2-10.1136/bmjopen-2018-024722