The importance of data integrity in your hospital contact center

As the main communication hub for departments within your healthcare system, your contact center is the source of truth for staff directories, code call workflows, and other data.

Many hospitals view the process of capturing, storing, securing, and analyzing this important information as a “one and done” operation, but it truly requires robust communication solutions and meticulous upkeep. Otherwise, you’ll face data management challenges that will impede employee productivity and the ability to deliver quality care.

By understanding the importance of data integrity, your organization is one step closer to providing ongoing support to the critical functions of your contact center.

What is data integrity in healthcare?

Harvard Business School defines data integrity as “the accuracy, completeness and quality of data as it’s maintained over time and across formats.”

Data integrity is often confused with data quality, which is only one part of this comprehensive definition. Maintaining the integrity of data also means that regardless of changes—such as updates, migrations, or modifications—the information remains intact and conveys a complete message.

The importance of data integrity

First and foremost, data integrity streamlines clinical communications. With information that is up-to-date and accurate, contact centers can locate details quickly and effectively in an enterprise directory based on a department’s specific request.

In addition, data integrity allows healthcare organizations to improve the user experience for their contact center employees. By ensuring that information can be trusted, contact center employees will spend less time sorting through gaps and inaccuracies that cause administrative burdens and see greater successes with their workflows.

At the same time, an integrity of data can also increase employee morale; they are more likely to accept and adopt enterprise-wide applications that can yield a higher ROI for their healthcare organizations.

Lastly, hospital administrators benefit from data integrity since it provides an accurate picture of their current resources. They can make informed decisions to implement changes based on evolving needs.

For example, hospital administrators might notice a consistent increase of elderly patients at their facilities. They can use information from their staff directory to determine if they need to hire more geriatric clinicians or invest in more solutions that would better assist their existing employees, leading to improved patient care.

The importance of data integrity is often overlooked but can’t be overstated. As hospitals produce more and more data each year, it plays a critical role across contact centers, individual departments, and administrative teams.

To learn about the benefits of a data integrity project that can clean up information for your staff directory and more, watch our complimentary on-demand webinar here.