CARMEL, Ind. — Clinical Architecture released its 2026 Healthcare Data Quality Report, finding widespread concern among healthcare organizations about the reliability and usability of patient data.
The fourth annual report examines healthcare professionals’ views on patient data quality, the effects of poor-quality data and barriers to improvement. Respondents represented providers, academia, public health, value-based care, life sciences and healthcare technology vendors.
According to the report, 82% of respondents rated patient data from external sources as poor or mixed quality, while 94% expressed concern about the overall accuracy of externally sourced data.
The survey also found that 68% of respondents cited limited time and resources as a major barrier to improving data quality.
For the fourth consecutive year, participants reported heightened concern about provider burnout associated with the growing volume of external patient data being integrated into healthcare systems. That figure reached 77% in the latest survey.
Clinical Architecture said the findings underscore the importance of data quality as healthcare organizations increasingly exchange information across electronic health records, health systems, payers and other organizations.
“Over the last four years, our survey participants have consistently told us that the data in their environments is mostly mixed or poor quality,” said Charlie Harp, CEO of Clinical Architecture. “At the same time, it is getting easier to access data from other organizations, but much of that data still is not trusted or directly usable. Given the impact data quality has on care, cost, and operational efficiency, it is clear why objectively measuring data quality with frameworks like PIQI is so important to the future of healthcare.”
The 2026 Healthcare Data Quality Report also compares this year’s findings with results from the previous three years, providing a four-year view of how perceptions of healthcare data quality have changed.
