National Patient Identifier Framework Released
Advocates for a national patient identifier took another step forward this week, releasing an operational framework for how healthcare organizations and the government can partner to enact this new type of identification. The group that put forward the framework, Patient ID Now, is comprised of dozens of healthcare organizations and industry trade groups.
The framework lays out major areas of concern that any national program should be sure to address. Topics include privacy, integration, equity, and governance, to name a few. Each of these topics are then broken down further into specific bullet points that a national patient identifier should address.
The recommendations are specific enough that they address particular standards like HL7 as examples, but also as general as saying anonymity should be supported where appropriate. This leaves quite a bit of information to be nailed down, but the framework can still act like an RFI or RFP for evaluating potential national identifier solutions.
Calls for a national patient identifier aren’t new, but have grown louder in the wake of the pandemic. Patient ID Now is newly formed, coming into existence just this past January between founding members the American College of Surgeons, AHIMA, CHIME, HIMSS, Intermountain Healthcare, and Premiere Inc. The growth of the organization and rapid publication of a framework show a real sense of urgency in creating government action.
Patient matching is essential to be able to provide effective care, particularly in times of a public health emergency, when people may be visiting different healthcare providers than usual. Having reportable data is also crucial for policymakers to make decisions affecting the public. Throughout the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, health systems have been reporting duplicate records which not only cost time and money to correct, but slow down public health reporting as well.
Currently, the process of patient matching can be manual, particularly when receiving documents like outside lab results. At best, this practice slows down receipt of documents to the EMR and/or DMS and at worst, it results in patient matching errors that can affect the quality of care. Vendors have come up with solutions to this problem like using barcode label stickers, but those still need someone to print and attach them in a specific manner.
Extract’s HealthyData solution approaches the problem in a different way. Since we use OCR to read everything on a document, our software can pick out key pieces of identifying data for a patient, whether it be a date of birth, medical record number, gender, etc. We can then use that data correctly match the document to the patient in the EMR. The software can also match the document to a specific order and encounter.
With or without a national patient identifier, making sure documents are associated with the correct patient is a crucial task. Please reach out if you’d like to learn more about how we automate this process.
