Identifying the Main Causes of Medical Data Incompleteness in the Smart Healthcare Era

Incomplete data due to discrepancies between medical data sources and their storage methods represents a serious concern as it may lead to the loss, or misrepresentation of important medical information. This concern is anticipated to grow in the era of smart healthcare as the volume, variety and speed at which medical data is collected will increase significantly. This paper aims to identify the main causes of data incompleteness in the medical domain, discuss some techniques currently used to build a complete medical picture and highlight how they may affect the consistency and accuracy of the collected data. It also outlines future research directions to efficiently handle data incompleteness and its consequences.