8320.1 provides the procedures for Data Administration. Three necessary data characteristics must be known to define interoperable databases. First, the contextual view of data must be developed to understand how data elements interact with each other. Second, the data element definitions must be unambiguous. These characteristics are contained within the combination of activity models, data models, and data element definitions.
Information exchange is accomplished for the most part by sending formatted messages.
The definition and documentation of these exchange mechanisms are provided by various messaging standards. The message fields, which are currently defined in the various message standards, are not necessarily mutually consistent, nor are they consistently based on any activity or data models either within a message system or across message systems.