Introduction to the minitrack: health care data management

Abstract

Health care usually involves a myriad of stakeholders, including patients, direct health care providers, researchers, managed care organizations, and third-party payers. These stakeholders often have considerable differences in objectives, concerns, priorities and constraints, making data management in health care organizations a challenging endeavor. The planning, management, and delivery of health care services include the manipulation of large amounts of information and the corresponding technologies are becoming increasingly embedded in all aspects of health care. The Health Care Data Management Minitrack focuses on the evolution of the database infrastructure required to handle clinical, managerial, and population-based data in the health care arena. The adoption of electronic commerce models in health care is making data management technologies even more critical. The ability to support both business-tobusiness and business-to-consumer efforts often rests on a foundation of database systems, along with standards and Web-deployment technologies to ensure connectivity.