APC-SIMULATOR:DEMONSTRATING THE EFFECTS OF TECHNICAL AND SEMANTIC ERRORS IN THE ACCURACY OF HOSPITAL REPORTING

摘要

In this paper we present the development of the APC-simulator (Ambulatory Procedure Calculatorsimulator).It is an experimental tool for illustrating the effects of technical and semantic errors in hospital reporting.Many disciplines are concerned that currently unrecognized inaccuracies in raw data and derived informationproducts endanger the validity of management decisions, policy recommendations and statistical research results.Healthcare reporting development experiences presented in this experiment support these concerns. During thesedevelopment projects many inaccuracies were found to be significant. They often result from intertwining contextualreasons rather than from random failures to provide correct data. In this experiment, constructive researchmethods are applied to demonstrate interdependencies between technical and semantic factors with an experimentaldashboard and empirical information. First, the dashboard calculates the errors that result from the technical dataflow. Then descriptive empirical information explains what errors mean in reality. The experiment suggests thatmany inaccuracies could be fixed by redefining general concepts semantically to match their local meaning. Inaddition, the entire information production process should be monitored transparently from technical and humanperspectives to avoid making invalid decisions.