AI Summary & Key Takeaways
AI InsightThese recommendations indicate that such planning and actions will contribute more to extracting insights from health system data, enabling more scientific value to be drawn, and ensuring that the budget and time spent on data are better allocated to other phases of research.
📌 3 Key Takeaways
Abstract
The main aim of this study is to evaluate the quality of open data widely used in the healthcare sector, the methods of its sharing, and its applications in Türkiye. It also aims to compare these practices with international examples in a detailed manner. Open data plays a strategic role today in increasing transparency and enhancing research capabilities. Proper open data sharing within the healthcare system will support health-related research and enable researchers to perform various analyses on the data. As a result, the energy and resources spent on finding data for scientific developments can be redirected to other areas of scientific activities, leading to more scientific output through various analyses that can be performed with the available data. In our study, we first examine sources that provide health-related data in Türkiye. Notable open data sources in Türkiye include Open Data Izmir, the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Open Data Platform, the Turkish Statistical Institute Statistical Data Portal, and the National Smart City Open Data Platform. Internationally, leading open data platforms include the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the U.S. Health Data Portal, and the World Bank Open Data Portal. In particular, the shared data contents, data types, data formats, reports created for the data, and the privacy measures regarding the data were analyzed. The seasonality and sustainability of the data were also examined. National open data sources were analyzed and compared with international sources. The results of the analysis showed that while there is a special effort in three major cities in Türkiye regarding data sharing, open data in the healthcare sector remains an area that can be improved in Türkiye. Sharing open data in a high-quality and efficient manner, in accordance with international standards, is considered highly valuable both for academic and practical applications. Examples were taken from systems that share appropriate datasets for analysis, and reporting was carried out using Microsoft Power BI business intelligence tools. A comprehensive assessment was made regarding what kinds of analyses can be performed, what kinds of research can be conducted, and what kind of extensions could enable further research. Additionally, as a result of the business intelligence applications, it was observed that the open data practices in Türkiye were generally limited compared to those in other countries. For developing countries like Türkiye, it is suggested that open data reach international standards, that the Ministries of Health support open data, that the formats for open data be diversified, that sharing standards comply with rules and regulations, and that an appropriate legal and regulatory framework be rapidly established. These recommendations indicate that such planning and actions will contribute more to extracting insights from health system data, enabling more scientific value to be drawn, and ensuring that the budget and time spent on data are better allocated to other phases of research.