Canadian Health Information Management Association Practice Exam

What is the process of organizing data to reduce redundancy known as?

1. Data accuracy.

2. Data architecture.

3. Data integrity.

4. Data normalization.

The correct answer is: Data normalization.

The process of organizing data to reduce redundancy is known as data normalization. Data normalization involves structuring a database in a way that minimizes duplicate data and ensures that each piece of data is stored only once. This is achieved by dividing a database into smaller, related tables and defining relationships between them. Normalization typically follows several stages, known as normal forms, which provide a systematic approach to ensuring that data is logically stored and efficiently retrieved. This process not only improves data integrity by ensuring that updates, deletions, and insertions can be executed without introducing inconsistencies, but it also optimizes the database's performance and use of storage. While data accuracy refers to the correctness of data, data architecture refers to the overall structure and design of a data environment, and data integrity denotes the accuracy and consistency of data over its lifecycle, they do not specifically pertain to the reduction of redundancy in the organization of data. Thus, the focus of the question aligns perfectly with the principles of data normalization.