Healthcare Analytics Data Collection & Management Flashcards

Which LOINC code characteristic distinguishes it from CPT codes in healthcare data?

Answer: LOINC identifies clinical observations and measurements, while CPT identifies procedures and services

LOINC standardizes names for laboratory tests, clinical observations, and measurements, whereas CPT codes describe medical procedures for billing.

Which metadata element is MOST critical for assessing whether a dataset is appropriate for a specific analytics use case?

Answer: Data provenance, including source system, collection method, and time period covered

Provenance metadata describes data origins and collection context, which determines fitness for a particular analytical purpose.

A health system implements attribute-based access control (ABAC) for its analytics platform. What does this mean?

Answer: Access decisions are based on user attributes, resource attributes, and environmental conditions rather than fixed role assignments

ABAC grants access based on policies that evaluate multiple attributes simultaneously, enabling fine-grained, context-aware control.

When building a longitudinal patient dataset, which technique is used to link records about the same patient across different encounters when no common unique identifier exists?

Answer: Probabilistic record linkage using demographic variables such as name, DOB, and gender

Probabilistic linkage assigns match weights based on agreement across multiple identifying fields when a shared ID is unavailable.

Which data collection challenge is specific to patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) compared to clinician-collected data?

Answer: Response bias and differential completion rates across patient subgroups

PROMs are susceptible to social desirability bias and non-response bias that varies systematically across demographic groups.

In a healthcare data warehouse, what is the purpose of a 'slowly changing dimension' (SCD) strategy?

Answer: To track how dimensional attributes such as patient address or provider affiliation change over time

SCD strategies (Types 1, 2, 3) define how to handle changes to dimension attributes while preserving or overwriting historical values.

Which regulatory framework governs the collection and use of health data from wearable consumer devices that are NOT classified as medical devices?

Answer: The FTC Act's unfair or deceptive practices provisions and state-level consumer privacy laws

Consumer wearables fall outside HIPAA's scope but are subject to FTC enforcement and state privacy laws such as CCPA.