How do medical researchers use open health data? A case study on data reuse behavior of using NHIRD in Taiwan

Data reuse is an emerging academic practice in information sciences studies, and there are diverse studies focusing on this topic. The concept of open health data is becoming a main stream in government administration, academic fields and business/industry. In this study, we analyzed 36 medical journal articles that used data from National Health Insurance Research Database through qualitative method to illustrate open health data reuse behavior in the medical field. The results indicated five stages of data reuse procedure: data re-appropriating, data recreating, data re-segmenting, data reconstructing and data revalidating. This paper demonstrates not only medical researchers' data reuse behavior with a practical perspective, but also how they transform quantitative data to valuable clinical discoveries. Moreover, the implications suggest different functionalities for an ideal open health data platform to support researchers' data reuse behavior in each research stage.