Oversight

Objective

To ensure that data quality has executive sponsorship within the organisation, that this is explicit, visible to the whole organisation and that data quality is seen to be subject to regular review and discussion at board level. 

Benefit

Having explicit and visible sponsorship at executive level demonstrates to staff and patients the importance of data quality in the delivery of high quality care, clinical and operational decision making. It also provides assurance and confidence in organisational performance.

Best practice

An executive management sponsor such as the Chief Clinical Information Officer (CCIO) or Senior Information Risk Officer (SIRO) should have overall responsibility for assuring data quality across the organisation. The sponsor should ensure that suitable systems of control and supporting metrics are in place, reported to and discussed by the board on a regular basis.  The executive sponsorship for data quality should extend across the organisation’s governance structure through groups responsible for information governance, audit and risk, quality performance and the setting and monitoring of the data quality strategy and policy.  The executive sponsor should also be responsible for defining the organisations Data Quality Strategy and associated policies.

Case study

Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust has developed a Data Quality Assurance Kitemark Scheme to provide assurance on the process, systems and data that underpin the reporting on a range of 30 key performance metrics defined by the CQC and NHS Improvement. Each metric has an executive sponsor responsible for ensuring the quality of the data used to form the metric.  The output from the Kitemark Scheme is reviewed and discussed by the trust’s executive management team and is used to identify and prioritise data quality improvement activities.