| Index | Last Week | Contact DQ News | Latest Issue |
| Featured Articles | Data & Information | Science & Technology | Education |
| Economics | Business | Law | Medicine |
Major DQ/IQ Conferences....Washington and Boston
Two major data quality and information quality conferences will be held this week. The first - The Data Quality Management Summit (DQMS '98) will be held in Washington on October 20th and 21st at the Westin Hotel (1400 M Street NW). According to the program, DQMS '98 will host a group of quality educators, quality executives, and information systems executives who will discuss how they utilize data quality tools in applications like data mining, data warehousing, and data stewardship. For more information, call the conference sponsor at: 212-983-3500 ext. 270.
The MIT 1998 Conference on Information Quality (IQ '98) will be held at MIT's Sloan School of Management in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 23rd to 25th. The purpose of the conference is to promote the exchange of knowledge about IQ research and practice. The conference program will include tracks of practice papers, research papers, panel sessions, and tutorial sessions. Updated information about the conference is available at the Web site: http://web.mit.edu/tdqm/
WSJ on Medical Information - User Beware
On October 19th, The Wall Street Journal published a "Health and Medicine" report as a supplement to its Monday issue. The articles in the supplement summarize many longstanding medical data and information quality problems, while in several ways contributing to the medical information mess.
WSJ staff reporter Andrea Petersen summarzies the problems patients are encountering finding "good" medical advice from a variety of sources apart from their physicians (page R4).
In the next article, staff reporter Elyse Tanouye explains the fine points (and fine print) of drug ads. This article appears on page R6 - sandwiched between drug ads.
Staff reporter Nancy Ann Jeffery points out that doctors are becoming annoyed by patients who approach physicians with medical "data" from various sources - many of which provide worthless or dangerous advice (page R8).
Several other articles concern longstanding DQ/IQ problems like medical information overload via the Web, how patients can find a "good" physician, which HMO's are "best," and whether medical advice that one hears on radio call-in shows is any good at all. Finally, an article by staff reporter George Anders (page R25) examines the steps some physicians, HMOs and hospitals are taking to improve how they handle medical information.
Unfortunately, the Journal supplement is long on anecdotes about problems but lacking in suggestions for comprehensive solutions - eventually the "marketplace" will sort it all out. An on-line version of the supplement can be accessed at the WSJ Web site: http://wsj.com
USA Today - EPA's Water Quality Data "Polluted"
According to an article in the October 21st issue of USA Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's massive database, containing millions of records on the 170,000 water systems in the United States is seriously flawed. The "Safe Drinking Water Information System" database is plagued by "dirty data," which, according to USA and others, is caused by such problems as lax reporting by states, confusion about what information is supposed to be reported, and technical glitches in transferring data from state programs to the federal system.
The database is supposed to contain state-reported violation and enforcement information for all federally-regulated water systems - from those serving large cities to some with as few as 25 customers. The EPA categorizes water systems in the United States as "community," "non-community, non-transient," and "non-community transient," based on the population served. Although community (i.e., city) water systems serve about 95% of Americans they comprise only about 1/3 of all water systems. The majority are transient systems that serve populations in campgrounds, motels, and resorts.
Despite spending six years and over $11 million overhauling the database, the EPA apparently isn't able to determine which systems are providing poor quality water and which are supplying high quality water. [The EPA has a large Web site dedicated to data quality]. The report was written by Barbara Hansen and appears on page 20A.
Go to: Data Quality Home Page
Comments: dqemail@aol.com (10/18/98)