| Course | NURS 6412 Information and Knowledge Management |
|---|---|
| Week | Week 2 |
| Paper type | Data dictionary entry with analysis |
| Length | About 1,000 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Walden University |
| Program | Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) |
| Updated | September 2026 |
Free sample paper for NURS 6412 Week 2
Admission Date and Time: A Data Dictionary Entry for the Field Three Departments Read Three Ways
Student Name
College of Nursing, Walden University
NURS 6412: Information and Knowledge Management
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Admission Date and Time: A Data Dictionary Entry for the Field Three Departments Read Three Ways
The Entry
The entry below follows the common structure for describing a data element in a metadata registry, separating the concept a field represents from how it is stored and who is responsible for it (International Organization for Standardization [ISO], 2023). It describes the element as adopted by a composite 240-bed regional hospital after the disagreement described in the next section.
Table 1
Data Dictionary Entry: Inpatient Admission Date and Time
| Attribute | Entry |
|---|---|
| Element name | Inpatient admission date and time (INPT_ADMIT_DTTM) |
| Business definition | The date and time at which the order to admit the patient as an inpatient was signed by an authorized prescriber. |
| Technical type and format | Date-time, local time zone, to the minute (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM) |
| Permitted values | Any valid date-time not earlier than the start of the encounter and not later than the time of entry |
| Source of truth | The signed admission order in the order management module; copied, never re-entered |
| Steward | Director of Patient Access, with the Nursing Informatics Specialist as clinical adviser |
| Point of capture | Automatically, at the moment the admission order is signed |
| Update rule | Changed only when an admission order is corrected, with the correction and reason logged; manual edits are not allowed |
| Exclusions | Observation stays, outpatient procedures and emergency department visits that end in discharge |
| Related elements | Emergency department arrival date and time; unit arrival date and time (bed occupied); discharge date and time |
| Effective date | July 1 of the current fiscal year; replaces the prior registration-entered admission time |
Three Readings of the Same Words
Before this entry existed, three departments used the words admission date and time and meant three different moments. Registration entered the time a patient was registered as an inpatient, which for patients admitted through the emergency department was often the time a clerk reached the task. Nursing units read the field as the moment the patient occupied a bed on the unit, because that is when nursing care began and when the admission assessment clock started. The quality department used whichever reading produced a sensible denominator for the measure at hand, and did not always say which one it had used.
The difference was not academic. For patients admitted from the emergency department at night, the three moments could be hours apart. A report of nursing admission assessments completed within eight hours of admission came out at 91% when measured from unit arrival and at 74% when measured from the registration time, for the same patients in the same month, because boarding time in the emergency department counted against nursing under the second reading. Both numbers were correctly calculated. They answered different questions, and the committee receiving the report did not know which it was looking at. Data quality frameworks call this a conformance problem: values that are valid in format but not consistent with a shared definition (Kahn et al., 2016).
What Was Adopted, and What Changes
The data governance group adopted the signed admission order as the definition, for three reasons. It is a single event with a clear owner, it is captured automatically so it cannot drift with workload, and it matches the moment at which the patient's status legally changes. The nursing reading was not discarded; it became its own element, unit arrival date and time, listed under related elements and owned by nursing. The nursing assessment measure now uses unit arrival explicitly, and its report states that on its first page.
Each department has something to do. Registration no longer enters an admission time by hand and must correct the order, not the field, when a time is wrong. Nursing must make sure unit arrival is recorded when the patient reaches the bed, not when the nurse first opens the chart. Quality must name the element used in every measure definition. Because currency and concordance are among the dimensions by which record data are judged fit for reuse (Weiskopf & Weng, 2013), the steward will review a monthly sample comparing the three times for a year to confirm that the definitions hold in practice.
How the Entry Will Be Maintained
A dictionary entry is only useful while it stays true. The steward will review this entry once a year and whenever a change to admission workflow is proposed, such as a new direct admission process from clinics or a change in how observation patients convert to inpatients. Any report or measure that uses the element must cite it by name and version in its definition, and the dictionary will list those reports under the entry so that a future change can be traced to everything it affects. Requests to change the definition go through the documentation change process rather than directly to the analyst who owns a report. Finally, the entry will be written in plain language in the hospital's online dictionary, so a nurse manager reading a report can look up exactly what the admission time means without asking an analyst.
Three More Fields With the Same Problem
The same argument applies at least to discharge date and time, which can mean the order, the patient leaving the unit or the bed being cleaned; to the time a medication was given, which can mean the scan, the documentation or the time the nurse selects; and to the height and weight used for dosing, which can be stated, measured or carried forward from a previous visit. Each deserves its own entry before the next report built on it reaches a committee. Discharge time is the most urgent of the three, because length of stay, bed turnaround and the time from discharge order to departure are all reported to leadership each week, and each report currently chooses its own reading of the field. A single entry for discharge, with its related elements listed as this one does for admission, would let those three reports finally be compared, and would spare the committee from debating numbers that were never measuring the same thing.
References
International Organization for Standardization. (2023). Information technology: Metadata registries (MDR). Part 1: Framework (ISO/IEC Standard No. 11179-1:2023).
Kahn, M. G., Callahan, T. J., Barnard, J., Bauck, A. E., Brown, J., Davidson, B. N., Estiri, H., Goerg, C., Holve, E., Johnson, S. G., Liaw, S.-T., Hamilton-Lopez, M., Meeker, D., Ong, T. C., Ryan, P., Shang, N., Weiskopf, N. G., Weng, C., Zozus, M. N., & Schilling, L. (2016). A harmonized data quality assessment terminology and framework for the secondary use of electronic health record data. eGEMs, 4(1), Article 18. https://doi.org/10.13063/2327-9214.1244
Weiskopf, N. G., & Weng, C. (2013). Methods and dimensions of electronic health record data quality assessment: Enabling reuse for clinical research. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 20(1), 144-151. https://doi.org/10.1136/amiajnl-2011-000681
Reading the NURS 6412 Week 2 instructions
The Week 2 prompt in Information and Knowledge Management generally asks for a data dictionary entry, or a small set of entries, for clinical data elements, with definitions, formats, sources and ownership, and a discussion of why standard definitions matter. Some sections supply a template; others expect you to choose the attributes. The table is usually accompanied by two or three pages of explanation. Pick an element whose meaning is genuinely disputed or ambiguous, since that is what gives the discussion something to analyze. Describe the organization in general terms and avoid copying any employer's actual dictionary or build documents into the assignment.
Inside the NURS 6412 Week 2 example
A brief paragraph ties the entry to the structure metadata registries use, separating meaning from storage and ownership. Table 1 holds the eleven attributes, with the business definition in one sentence first and the technical format below it. The next section describes how registration, nursing and quality each read the field and shows the two report results that disagreed, naming the problem as a conformance failure in data quality terms. A section on adoption explains why the signed admission order was chosen and how the nursing reading became its own element. Maintenance rules, the steward's review and three further fields with the same problem close the paper.
Where the marks sit in the NURS 6412 Week 2 rubric
Rubrics for the data dictionary assignment usually score completeness of the entry, clarity of definitions, analysis of the element's use, connection to data quality and governance, evidence and presentation. Completeness is judged against the attributes the prompt lists. Clarity asks whether the business definition could be understood by someone outside informatics. The analysis row is where papers separate: explaining why the definition matters, with an example of what goes wrong without it, earns the most credit. Governance connections, such as naming a steward and an update rule, often earn their own marks. Evidence expects a standard or framework, and presentation checks the table and APA format. Some rubrics also look for a maintenance plan, since an entry nobody reviews drifts out of date.
NURS 6412 Week 2 help from the desk
The frequent mistake is an entry for an obvious field, such as patient name, where nothing needs to be decided and the discussion has nothing to say. Another is a definition that repeats the field name in different words. Some entries give a technical format but no business meaning, or name a department rather than a role as owner. Many papers skip the prose and submit a table alone. Choose a field people argue about, write a one-sentence definition someone could apply, name a steward and a source of truth, and show one report that changes depending on the definition used. Finally, test the definition by asking two colleagues from different departments to apply it to the same record.
Get a NURS 6412 Week 2 example written to your instructions
Tell the desk which element your prompt assigned and send the rubric with it. Some sections name the field, others let you choose, and the choice changes the entry completely. A custom dictionary entry with its narrative comes back inside 24-48h, first one free, table supplied as an editable file.
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NURS 6412 Week 2 questions, answered
Can I build the entry from my employer's real dictionary?
The example is written from a described organization instead. An exported dictionary, like a build document, is the property of the place that maintains it. Nothing is lost by describing a composite: the attributes are standard practice, and the conflict between two departments over an admission timestamp is common enough to construct honestly without copying anyone's file.
Should the definition include the technical data type?
The example carries both, with the business definition first and the type underneath it. Prompts that ask only for a plain-language definition still tend to reward an entry showing that format and permitted values were considered. What reliably costs points is a technical row that contradicts the definition above it, such as a free-text type under a definition promising a fixed set of values.
How much prose belongs with a table?
Roughly two pages against one page of table in this example. A dictionary entry submitted alone reads as a form, and the analysis rows in most rubrics have nothing to grade. The prose is where the reasoning lives, which is why it carries the conflict, the evidence and the decision rather than restating cells a reader has already seen.
Where can I find a free NURS 6412 Week 2 sample paper?
This page shows the full data dictionary entry, the table and every section of the analysis, free. If your section assigns a different data element or a template of its own, a matching custom entry can be written at no charge.
Which data element works best for the NURS 6412 dictionary entry?
Elements that different departments interpret differently work best, such as admission time, discharge time, time of medication administration or height and weight used for dosing. The disagreement gives the paper something to resolve.