The US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions held a hearing on 6/10/2015. The topic was Health Information Exchange: A Path Towards Improving the Quality and Value of Health Care for Patients. This press release from CHIME reports on the need for accurate patient identification. CHIME press release 6/10/2015.
It is time for a new way to link patients to their health records
Very interesting article from the New York Times on the use of Social Security Numbers in healthcare.
CHIME issues Patient ID Challenge
GPII can meet this challenge. We are looking for partner Companies and Healthcare Organizations who would like to participate in the challenge.
Patient-controlled access to Electronic Medical Records
In this real-world trial conducted by the Regenstrief Institute, 49 percent of the 105 patients who participated elected to withhold information contained in their medical record from some or all of their health care providers. Patients strongly desired such control, while their providers had mixed reactions.
One of the "Basic challenges that we face" says Jack Wolf, Montefiore Medical Center's Chief Information Officer "is the lack of a unique patient identifier".
'When you get into population health, tracking these patients is very dependent on being able to uniquely identify that it is the same patient'
Russ Branzell, CEO of CHIME, weighs in
Healthcare IT News reports on Branzell telling the AHIMA convention "There are so many opportunities. There are so many things that we need clarity on in our industry. It's very difficult, whether that be interoperability or clear standards".
GAO indicates patient matching and privacy represent unsolved challenges
A recent publication by the General Accounting Office states that accurate patient matching and supporting privacy of patient information are major challenges to achieve interoperability.
Why a Unique Patient Identifier is Critical to Improve Patient Matching
A recent article published in HIStalk continues the discussion about the pros and cons of unique patient identifiers as a means to improve patient matching.
ONC SAFER patient identification self assessment
In January of 2014 the ONC released a Safety Assurance Factors for EHR Resilience (SAFER) report on patient identification. This is a self assessment tool to be used by healthcare organizations that want to determine how well they are doing in the patient identification area. It focuses on 14 measures of patient identification quality.