Mastering Data Management

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Make sure clean data is a priority for your MDM road map

So far, we have made several stops on our MDM roadmap, from data volumes and data hubs to business benefits and decommissioning strategies. It just goes to show how complex the topic is and how many things you must take into consideration while preparing for an MDM initiative.

High on the list are data quality and integrating unstructured data. Without clean data, your MDM efforts are for naught, as making decisions based on bad data won’t get you the results you seek. And unstructured data – which can vary widely between industries – is a fact of life that you must be prepared to meet.

Master Data Quality

If the MDM initiative has an operational MDM focus, master data quality processes are to be established, data quality metrics to be introduced and continuously measured. These processes must be established by the business and data governance.

Master data quality processes, metrics and technologies supporting these processes and metrics (data governance dashboard) should be included in the MDM roadmap as one of its domains. (We have many, many data quality resources.)

Integration with Unstructured Data

A vast majority of MDM initiatives do not include integration with the systems managing unstructured data. The unstructured data include images, contracts, memos, MS Excel spreadsheets and other documents.

Some industry-specific MDM variants are integrated with unstructured data. EMPI (Enterprise Master Patient Index) implementations that represent a hospital or medical center variant of MDM normally include integrating the MDM Data Hub with patients’ test results, x-rays, CT scans, MRI data and other imaging documents.

This integration is accomplished by a cross-reference between EMPI and the indexes referencing documents, tests and images. (See Bill Klaver’s series on the tools and technologies needed for a health information exchange.)

Similarly, pharmaceutical companies are interested in cross-references between the products the company is developing or has developed and tremendous amount of unstructured data accumulated oftentimes over years of laboratory experiments.

Other industries can also benefits from integration between MDM and document management systems. For instance, a mortgage company can benefit from MDM integration with loan contracts and other documents associated with the loan. An enterprise embarking on an MDM initiative should consider benefits and costs associated with the inclusion of unstructured data in the scope of MDM integration.

If, after careful consideration, an enterprise makes a decision to include integration between MDM and document management systems in the scope of MDM, this integration becomes an important MDM roadmap domain.

What’s the strangest type of unstructured data you’ve encountered? How did you integrate it into an MDM hub?

This is part of a series, Building an MDM Roadmap. For other posts and a complete index, view the Table of Contents.