ABC of health informatics: Improving services with informatics tools

A public health consultant faced with complex, difficult choices, such as the data on asthma prescribing, will prefer to discuss the reasons for apparent prescribing failures rather than taking pre-emptive action, which may do harm to the service overall. The factors that caused the presenting problem are often rooted in the culture of the health system, and so the solution often means changing the system. The consequences of failing to act when there is a problem need to be counterbalanced against the damage caused by incorrect interpretation of data collected for one purpose but used for another.