Table 3.

Critical-to-quality metrics used to measure clinical data quality.

Rank	Metric	Definition of metric	Measurement method	Defect definition
1	Accuracy	The degree to which EHRa data correctly represent a client’s personal, medical, clinical, and psychosocial circumstances and care needs	Manual audit of random sample of EHRs compared with original documents (eg, admission documents or medical reports)	Data that do not match the original source of truth
2	Completeness	The degree to which all required data in the EHR are present	Data warehouse audit of all EHRs	Missing data (ie, null or blank fields)
4	Currentness	The degree to which EHR data are up to date and reflect the client’s current condition and changes in circumstances and care needs	Data warehouse audit of all EHRs	Data fields not updated within required timeframes as per clinical guidelines
3	Clarity	The degree to which data are presented in a clear format and enable the user to understand a client’s care needs without ambiguity	Manual assessment of a random sample of EHRs	Data fields with unclear presentation
5	Compliance	The degree to which EHRs capture all the required information to meet legal, funding, and regulatory requirements and in accordance with best practice clinical guidelines	Manual review of data fields captured in existing systems	Missing mandatory data (ie, null or blank fields)
6	Usability	The degree to which data are presented in a format that allows the information to be directly and efficiently used for primary (eg, care provision) and secondary purposes (eg, reporting, analytics, and evaluation)	Data warehouse audit of all EHRs	Data with limited primary and secondary usability

^aEHR: electronic health record.