What is data provenance and why does it matter in healthcare?

Data provenance means knowing where data came from, who recorded it, when, and how. It matters because clinical decisions depend on knowing whether a diagnosis was confirmed or provisional, research requires understanding selection bias, medico-legal questions require audit trails, and AI models trained on biased data perpetuate those biases. Data collected for one purpose (e.g. billing) may be unreliable for another (e.g. clinical research).