Challenges of Access to Data of Ministry of Health from the Perspective of Policy-makers, Producers, and Consumers of Data: A Qualitative Study

Data plays a major role in a health care system in development planning and health services support if they are correct, timely and accessible. The data of the Ministry of Health are not readily available and the limited access reduces their value. The aim of this study was to explore the challenges of access to the data of the Iranian Ministry of Health.
This qualitative study was conducted in 2015. Twenty-three academic and administrative experts were selected purposefully. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect the data. The transcripts of the interviews were analyzed using content analysis.
The results of this study provided 4 main themes (challenges of access to the data of the surveillance system, challenges of access to the data of national surveys and ordered projects, challenges of access to the data of electronic health records, and challenges of access to confidential data) and 15 sub-themes.
Given the multiple challenges of access to the data of the Iranian Ministry of Health, it is suggested to design access mechanisms in a systematic manner in the form of guidelines and organizational structures for data access management.