Secondary data is information gathered for all other reasons other than the completion of a research project. There are various sources of secondary information that are available to the researcher gathering data. Secondary data can furthermore be classified according to its source, either internal or external. While internal data consists of information obtained within the organization, external sources are those that are obtained from other sources other than the establishment.

Primarily, the administration of the organization is a user of internal secondary data since they access the information from within the institution and for purposes that are of importance to the company. Other users of internal data are the staff in a company (Tutor, 2014). The work that these people do require the resources of the institution (Tutor, 2014).

Users of external data are the public (Tutor, 2014). Anybody can access secondary data especially if the information relates to them (Tutor, 2014). As such, external data users consist of people within and outside the organization. In contrast, internal data users must strictly have clearance for records as they are within the organization.

Hospital databases are the spinal cord of the institution. The records of various patients could be organized in one of five methods that depend on the preference of the hospital (Tutor, 2014). To begin with, one of the healthcare database types is distributed databases. These are databases stored in different computers and different settings due to the large amount of data stored. As a result, they’re chronologically arranged to avoid confusion (Tutor, 2014). The second type of database is large healthcare utilization databases that are used to show the use and outcome of treatment on patients and the effectiveness of the treatment (Tutor, 2014). Binary large object files are common in healthcare settings and store images, audio and videos. The last form of database is the data-less databases. These are distributed databases that have been set-up without data and only contain it when need arises. All in all, every hospital management chooses the best database to store their data.