Introduction
Maintaining data integrity has become crucial to any organization’s success in today's data-driven world. At EverCheck, we understand the importance of accurate, consistent, and reliable data, especially in the healthcare industry where patient care and quality of care are paramount.
Our rigorous measures ensure data integrity at every stage of the life cycle. In this article, we’ll explore what data integrity is, its importance, and how EverCheck maintains data integrity for the safety of patients.
What is Data Integrity? Why is it important?
Data integrity refers to data's accuracy, consistency, and reliability over its entire life cycle. It is a critical aspect of data management, ensuring that data is trustworthy and can be relied upon for decision-making.
Data integrity is achieved through various methods, including validation, error checking, and quality control measures. Data quality control measures involve establishing standards and procedures for ensuring data quality and monitoring the quality of data over time.
Maintaining data integrity is essential in various fields, including healthcare, finance, and scientific research. For example, data integrity is critical in healthcare to establish patient safety and provide high-quality care. In finance, data integrity is essential for ensuring the accuracy of financial reporting and preventing fraud.
Ensuring data integrity requires ongoing monitoring and maintenance to detect and correct any errors or inconsistencies in the data. This includes implementing appropriate data security measures to prevent unauthorized access, making sure that data is backed up and recoverable in the event of a system failure or other disaster, and implementing appropriate data retention policies to guarantee that data is retained only as long as necessary and is disposed of securely when no longer needed.
What are some common challenges in maintaining data integrity?
Maintaining data integrity can be a challenge due to a variety of factors. One common challenge is data entry errors, which can occur when data is entered incorrectly or inconsistently. Another challenge is data storage and retrieval, as data can become corrupted or lost if not stored and backed up properly. Data security is also a concern, as unauthorized access to data can lead to tampering, loss, or corruption. Additionally, data can become outdated over time, requiring ongoing monitoring and updating to ensure its accuracy and relevance. Finally, human error and technological issues can also pose challenges to maintaining data integrity, making continuing monitoring and maintenance critical to ensuring data accuracy, consistency, and reliability over its entire life cycle.
Automation for data integrity is the best option because it reduces the risk of human error, ensures consistency, and saves time. By automating data integrity checks, organizations can identify and correct data quality issues in real-time, which helps prevent downstream problems and increases overall data accuracy. Additionally, automation allows for continuous monitoring of data integrity, which helps maintain data quality over time and provides greater visibility into potential issues.
How Does EverCheck Maintain Data?
Evercheck provides various opportunities to maintain and store data, so when professionals need access, they can act with their data.
EverCheck offers several solutions to maintain and review data:
- Positions Manager: Keep each position’s license requirements for the entire system or organization consolidated in one user-friendly system.
- Exception Reports: This report is sent monthly to clients, reporting on LCRs that must be addressed. This could be because they are not verifying correctly due to an incorrect license number, profession, state, etc. This report allows our clients to understand what action needs to be taken for the LCRs to begin verifying again.
- Name Discrepancy Report: This type of report identifies a difference between a candidate’s name and the name of the license verified through the primary source. This report lets our clients understand what action needs to be taken for the names aligned on the reports.
- No Longer Found Report: This report shows our clients what licenses or certifications need to be verified correctly, and the client cannot see them within the account. For example, suppose an employee goes from a “Temporary RN” to an “RN” license, and the board removes their temporary license from the website. In that case, EverCheck can no longer run verification on that license.
How does EverCheck ensure the security and privacy of employee data during the maintenance process?
- Okta: A cloud-based identity management platform that helps businesses securely manage user access to applications and data. It provides a centralized hub for employees, customers, and partners to securely access various systems and applications using single credentials, eliminating the need for multiple logins. Okta offers a range of features, including authentication, authorization, and user management, and can integrate with various third-party applications and services.
- FTP Protocol: All primary source data is transferred to the EverCheck system and to your organization’s HRIS, if integration is utilized, via a secure File Transfer Protocol (sFTP). An sFTP is used for all data transfers between EverCheck and our clients, providing high security for sending and receiving file transfers.
- Active Directory Authentication: using single sign-on, requiring users to authenticate their EverCheck access through the organization’s existing network.
- SOC II Type II Certification Requirement: SOC 2 Type 2 certification is a widely recognized standard that verifies a company's ability to secure sensitive customer data. It assesses a company's systems and controls over a period of time, typically six months or longer, to ensure that they are operating effectively and meeting the criteria of the Trust Services Criteria (TSC) framework. Technology companies, service providers, and other organizations that handle customer data often seek certification.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, data integrity is critical to any organization's success, particularly in healthcare, where it is vital for ensuring patient safety and providing high-quality care. EverCheck understands the importance of maintaining data integrity and has implemented rigorous measures to achieve it. EverCheck offers various solutions to retain and review data, including Positions Manager, Exception Reports, Name Discrepancy Reports, and No Longer Found Reports. Additionally, EverCheck has implemented measures to ensure the security and privacy of employee data during the maintenance process, such as OKTA, FTP Protocol, Active Directory Authentication, and SOC II Type II Certification Requirements. With these measures in place, EverCheck can provide reliable, accurate, and consistent data for the safety of patients and the success of healthcare organizations.
