Answer to Question 1
The term data refers to individual facts or pieces of information and information refers to data or facts that are assembled and analyzed to add meaning and usefulness. For example, a single high-temperature reading of an incoming patient at Patient First, a 24-hour walk-in clinic in Laurel, Maryland, is one piece of data. But entered into the patient records information system, and combined with the patient's other symptoms and previous medical records, it becomes far more valuable as a diagnostic tool. Even more value can be obtained from this one temperature reading by aggregating it with the data from other patients entering the clinic that week. Tables and charts constructed from these data, analyzed by geographic region, may indicate a flu epidemic or the first signs of a pandemic emergency. As information from many clinics, emergency rooms, and doctors' offices pours in and the public health staff at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta analyzes maps, patient diagnoses, and many other facts, a pattern may emerge that warrants swift action.
Information can be further refined, analyzed, and combined to make it even more useful, and extremely valuable. No clear dividing lines separate these categories, and people often use the terms interchangeably. They blend together and form a continuum as more meaning and usefulness are created through analysis and skillful combination of many sources of data and human insight.
Answer to Question 2
D
Cross-sectional data showing that the amount of effort spent on personal health care increases with
A physician uses a portable electronic tablet to enter patient data while in the examination room.
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