What Causes Data Integrity Issues?

Your data is the heart of your business. If the heart of your business is not functioning as best as it can, it could cripple your bottom line.

Examples of Data Integrity Issues

How do you end up with low data integrity? There are many reasons and scenarios that may compromise your data integrity. Ask yourself these questions to establish if your data integrity could be compromised:

• Do you have enough manpower? If your employees are under severe pressure due to shortages of staff, they could be putting together incomplete or inaccurate documents.
• Are your employees following written procedures? Properly documented processes and procedures ensure consistent performance. If performance is not consistent, outputs may not be consistent.
• Are your employees trained properly? If they do not understand the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP)—the system for ensuring that products are consistently produced and controlled according to quality standards—this could also result in inconsistencies and flaws.
• Do you instill a value of quality and not quantity in your staff members? This could lead to unacceptable quality levels purely to meet targets.
• Do you record all your data as part of an official record? Without records, we don't have a paper trail to refer back to when something goes wrong.

Can You Avoid Data Integrity Issues?

Here are some quick tips on how to avoid data integrity issues and optimize your data quality:

1. Avoid data silos. Separated databases are a major cause of discrepancies and inconsistencies.
2. Validate your input and data.
3. Remove all duplicated data.
4. Implement access controls.
5. Always keep an audit trail.