Data Literacy Skills of Health Information Management Professionals in Tertiary Hospital, Bayelsa State, Nigeria.

Abstract

Data literacy is the bedrock of every organizational decision support, as such health information
management professionals is pivotal to this crucial role through constant interaction with
patients on a daily basis. These roles can only be acted upon swiftly if they are data literate and
competent. A situation whereby these factors are not in existence, there is every tendency that
health information management professionals will face threat on their roles. It is against this
backdrop this study considers it apt to investigate the data literacy skills (DLS) of health
information professionals in tertiary hospitals in Bayelsa state. Descriptive research design was
adopted. Population consists of 78 health information management professionals in tertiary
hospitals in Bayelsa state. Total enumeration sampling technique was adopted as the sampling
technique for this study. The reliability coefficient for each of the variables is 0.99, 0.98, 0.99,
and 0.98. Data collected was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings
revealed that, data gathering skill was more common with the highest mean, while other skills
such as data storing, data processing and data visualizing skills were not common. The study
concluded that data literacy skills of health information management professionals are low. In
the shed light of this, the study recommended that organizational heads of tertiary hospitals and
regulatory bodies should promote data literacy skills that will improve the quality healthcare
data.