A Decision-Theoretical Model for Quality Indexes of Medical Documentations

Abstract

Medical documentations are widely applied in form of medical data bases which are used as part of hospital information systems, or in retrieval systems, or as medical records in micro- and mini computer applications etc. The growing importance of these documentations results from their fundamental function as the empirical basis of medical items for the support of medical decisions and flow of information. Of course the design and development of medical data bases is of the highest importance in the initial stages. But during the following steps of operating medical documentation the question must be raised as to the quality of the collected data. It is a pity that this problem of quality control or evalution of medical documentations is so often neglected, because the acceptance is strongly dependent on it, all further applications are affected by it and much wasted effort may be saved. Not only the praxis but also the data base theory or the methods of software engineering seldomly deal with quality control. However there exists a theoretial basis for quality indexes which stems from the classic documentation theory.