Certified Healthcare Technology Specialist (CHTS) Process Workflow & Information Management Redesign Practice Exam

Which is NOT an example of data types in a healthcare context?

1. Meta data

2. Nominal data

3. Scientific data

4. Ordinal data

The correct answer is: Scientific data

In healthcare, various data types are recognized for their roles in managing information effectively. Scientific data, while it can be relevant to healthcare research and studies, is not typically classified as a distinct data type in the same way that nominal, ordinal, and metadata are. Nominal data is used for labeling variables without any quantitative value, such as patient identifiers or gender. Ordinal data, on the other hand, involves order or ranking, such as satisfaction surveys or staging a disease. Metadata provides context about other data, describing aspects such as the source, date of collection, or how the data can be used. In contrast, scientific data generally refers to information gathered through laboratory tests, clinical trials, or other research methodologies. It encompasses a broad range of information that may not directly fit into the structured data types commonly employed for daily healthcare operations and patient management. Therefore, identifying scientific data as not being a specific data type within a typical healthcare data framework is accurate.