As a nurse, I have a love-hate relationship with data. Sometimes, data can be the silver bullet that reveals the source of a complex problem, and other times, it seems to dehumanize patient care to the point that we no longer “see” our patients—just zeroes and ones in the matrix of the Electronic Medical Record (EMR). But without the data, we risk missing out on issues that affect our real patients.
There are giant servers all over the nation holding terabytes of patient data, and within these storage banks lie clues that could pull back the curtain on problems for individual patients, facilities, and entire populations.
But interacting with this data also introduces our personal bias and human fallibility. If it were easy to mold the data into perfect solutions, we would have done it already. So, how do we interact with data without either neglecting the human side or skewing the numbers with our personal perspectives?
By Gayle Porter
