Adjusting the Database to Improve Integrity Discussion Paper
The database should be refined to enhance data integrity and efficiency in clinical decision-making. The focus on clarity for enhancing one-to-many aspects of the database is essential to improving the integrity of data and strengthening its support in decision-making and managing the underlying issues and needs. For instance, the department’s table should link to the facilities through the facility ID with foreign numerical data or unique identifiers in this strategy. Similarly, the employee training records should link employee training to each department to correctly identify the employee training associated with the organization’s knowledge development or continuous knowledge activities such as workshops, continuous medical education sessions, and other activities or sessions that allow knowledge and skill development (Harrington, 2016). Every employee must log in using their ID and the training ID to allow for accurate data tracking and referential integrity for the data managed in the organization. Adjusting the Database to Improve Integrity Discussion Paper
The process of choosing the correct data type for coding a problem involves the following steps: The reason for qualified data types is to preserve the integrity of the data collected. For instance, in the case of the Employees table, DOB should be defined as DATE, Employee ID as INTEGER, and FirstName and LastName should be defined as VARCHAR with the necessary length restrictions. They ensure the data stored in each field is correct and good for use by minimizing invalid information. Likewise, the ‘Duration’ in the Training Programs table should also be of INTEGER type as it is the number of hours. Reducing the data type minimizes the vulnerability of data corruption and amplifies data validations.
Ways of Reducing the Risk of Poor Data Integrity
Due to this, it is crucial to use constraints like NOT NULL, UNIQUE, and CHECK to minimize the vulnerability of low data integrity. For example, the Employee ID column in the Employees table should be made unique to avoid the duplication of value. In contrast, the Department ID column should be designated as NOT NULL to ensure every employee is assigned to a department. Further, integrity constraints, particularly the foreign key constraints, guarantee that entries in associated tables are valid (Richesson et al., 2023). These measures help avoid invalid data entry into the database and thus help maintain the data’s validity. Adjusting the Database to Improve Integrity Discussion Paper
Eliminating Duplicate Data
One of the advantages associated with normalization techniques is the removal of duplicate data. For instance, normalization, where data is partitioned into several associated tables to avoid repetition of information. For example, two fields in the Employee Competencies table – Employee ID and Competency ID- should have different values for each record to eliminate duplicate values. Using such features as Departments and Facilities in lookup tables also avoids duplication. This means that repeated data are eliminated. If changes or updates are to be made in a particular data, this has to be done only once in the suitable table so that all the other tables in the database will also reflect the change.
Healthcare information technology should allow for implementing unique and appropriate strategies and mechanisms that achieve the best and optimal results. These systems should enable smooth and efficient data flow and provide professionals with opportunities to solve specific design problems, such as one-to-many relations (Awrahman et al., 2022). Identifying the proper data types, constraints, and normalization guarantees the database’s effective work. These strategies develop a firm foundation for dependable data storage, retrieval, and management based on the unique characteristics available in this database that allow for smooth and efficient data management strategies. Adjusting the Database to Improve Integrity Discussion Paper
References
Awrahman, B. J., Aziz Fatah, C., & Hamaamin, M. Y. (2022). A review of the role and challenges of big data in healthcare informatics and analytics. Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience, 2022(5317760), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/5317760
Harrington, J. L. (2016). Relational Database Design and Implementation (4th ed.). Morgan Kaufmann.
Richesson, R. L., Andrews, J. E., & Hollis, K. F. (2023). Clinical research informatics. Springer Nature.