Healthcare organizations require consistent, accurate and trusted information that can be reliably utilized by the entire organization to improve clinical and business performance. Data governance practices can improve the quality, security and compliance of information including electronic patient files.

1. IBM Sales and Distribution Healthcare
Solution Brief
Data governance for
healthcare
There is no lack of data in healthcare. What is lacking is the ability to
Highlights: ensure the accuracy and quality of information—information that may
reside in multiple repositories across the organization. The data gover-
● Identify and define governance and nance solution for healthcare from IBM applies proven disciplines and
operational requirements to determine
your level of maturity processes to assess, manage, use, maintain and protect enterprise
information.
● Provide easier access to accurate infor-
mation to help enable better-informed
care decisions and more timely Optimize data governance for accuracy
payment of medical claims
and quality
● Ensure access to trusted patient/ The data governance solution begins with an assessment of your
member information to support patient/ current operational environment. We work with you to identify and
member-centered initiatives
define your needs across 11 data governance disciplines: value creation;
● Accurately identify each patient, mem- organizational awareness; risk management; data architecture; data
ber or provider to support transparency quality; security, privacy and compliance; stewardship; information
and interoperability
life-cycle management; auditing and reporting; policy; and metadata
● Progress data governance maturity to and business glossary. From there, we can help you build a data gover-
get the most out of your information
nance strategy and implementation plan.
management investments
This solution helps healthcare organizations establish a better defini-
tion of current governance and operational requirements as well as a
common framework to address integration and communication needs
across functional areas. This framework can help you provide easier
access to accurate information—with reduced information duplication
and improved data quality—helping to prevent issues that threaten data
trustworthiness. Better data governance can help improve external and
internal reporting with a single, accurate version of data. And ongoing
data governance programs can support organizations as they increas-
ingly value information as a strategic asset.
Hospitals and physicians: Become more
patient focused
By helping your organization determine its data governance and opera-
tional maturity level, we can develop a program to enable hospitals to
provide a new level of patient care. Data governance capabilities are
crucial to supporting evidence-based care decisions that can lead to
improved patient outcomes. Our maturity model can accelerate access

2. to timely, consistent and integrated patient information, helping to
enable more proactive care and to prevent complications. Improving
your data governance can also help support pay-for-performance
reporting within clinical care. In addition, our solution can help you
establish the governance and security needed to reduce regulatory risk
such as HIPAA compliance. © Copyright IBM Corporation 2010
IBM Corporation
Health plans: Establish transparency and Route 100
Somers, NY 10589
interoperability
Produced in the United States of America
Applying data governance disciplines can help health plans ensure May 2010
access to trusted information about members, providers and claims— All Rights Reserved
both within and across organizational boundaries. Enhancing data
IBM, the IBM logo, and ibm.com are trademarks or
quality improves the accuracy of member and provider identification to registered trademarks of International Business Machines
support activities such as clinical decision making, member population Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.
If these and other IBM trademarked terms are marked on
analyses and provider performance assessments. Data governance can
their first occurrence in this information with a trademark
also help optimize claims processing and member eligibility with an symbol (® or ™), these symbols indicate U.S. registered or
intelligent information environment. Based on your current maturity common law trademarks owned by IBM at the time this
information was published. Such trademarks may also
level, our solution can help lower your cost of ownership by realizing
be registered or common law trademarks in other
a better return on the investments you’ve already made. countries. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on
the Web at “Copyright and trademark information” at
ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml
Assuring data quality and accuracy for
Other product, company or service names may be
smarter healthcare trademarks or service marks of others.
The data governance solution offers services to assess your organiza-
tion’s data governance maturity and identify initial areas of focus. Our
Please Recycle
services can then help you develop your data governance strategy,
structure and implementation plan. To help enable your analytics
environment, we offer robust master data management and data ware-
housing solutions to unify multiple data stores, including data quality,
data profiling and metadata management capabilities. We can also help
you build master patient/member and master provider indexes to unify
disparate data sources and associate patient and provider identification
correctly. By providing vital information across heterogeneous environ-
ments, our solution enables more informed decision making, increased
efficiencies and reduced costs.
IBM and our IBM Business Partners are committed to making smarter
healthcare a reality. Through collaboration, we apply our healthcare
expertise and extensive technology portfolios to deliver innovative
solutions. When you need to gain intelligence from enterprise infor-
mation and create new patient and business value, our solutions can
help. As a healthcare industry leader, we are committed to working
with organizations to help them achieve their objectives. As a global
and national leader, we are at the forefront of healthcare transforma-
tion and can bring that experience to bear on your business challenges.
For more information
To learn more about the data governance solution for healthcare,
please contact your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner,
or visit: ibm.com/healthcare
HHS03004-USEN-00