AHIMA guidance delves into data mapping, integrity issues
The rising demand for interoperability between disparate data systems has fueled an increase in data mapping projects.
The American Health Information and Management Association (AHIMA) released a guidance to assist providers in navigating data mapping to ensure data maintain their integrity as they move from one system to the next.
“Understanding the role and context of data maps, as well as their strengths and weaknesses, is essential in ensuring the reliability of the data entries derived from maps,” according to the guidance.
AHIMA advises that in all situations, employing maps, processes and guidelines must be clearly defined and documentation prepared to explain how the map was created, tested and performing correctly for its intended use cases.
The association recommends the following best practices to avoid data mapping errors:
- Document the map heuristics and standing business rules surrounding each map’s development of each map. These rules include use cases for each map, the identification of applications that would utilize the map and documentation to explain how mapping rules are created and deployed in the workflow.
- Create a program and process to test the validity and reproducibility of the map. This program should cover the map’s development process and any associated tools used from map development to end user acceptance testing and approval.
- Implement a maintenance program to ensure that the map’s code sets are updated appropriately.
Read the full guidance here.