ONC launches patient matching project

A new patient matching effort aims to identify and recommend standardization of the basic attributes most commonly used, according a HealthIT Buzz blog post by Lee Stevens, policy director of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT's (ONC) state health information exchange (HIE) program.

The collaborative Patient Matching Initiative is designed to help identify the common denominators and best practices being used by private sector healthcare delivery systems and federal agencies, Stevens wrote.

The project will focus on the following two objectives:

1. Identifying the common attributes that achieve high positive match rates across disparate systems. The attributes may include common fields such as name, date of birth, address, sex, cell phone number and new criteria such as emergency contact and insurer.
2. Defining the processes and best practices that are most effective to support high positive patient matching rates utilizing these attributes.

Environmental scans and widespread literature reviews will be conducted to inform the next steps in the project, Stevens wrote. Project partners include the Federal Health Architecture which is made up of more than 20 federal agencies (Department of Health & Human Services, Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration) and CHIME, HIMSS, the Bipartisan Policy Center, HealtheWay, the EHR/HIE Interoperability Work Group, many large integrated delivery networks and state and local HIE organizations. The Patient Matching Initiative will end later this year and participants will present a list of recommendations to the national coordinator for consideration.

CHIME has issued a statement about the project: “Patient data-matching is a foundational component to the exchange of electronic health information--which, in turn, is a critical component for improved care coordination and quality improvement,” said CHIME President and CEO Russell P. Branzell. “Despite years of development, no clear strategy has emerged to accurately and consistently match patient data. As we advance interoperability and health information exchange, we are delighted to see ONC take action to ensure the right data is matched with the right patient. This is a necessary, concrete step to bolster patient safety.”

As health information moves from setting to setting and organization to organization, matching patient data accurately becomes more complex and the potential for misidentification increases, according to the statement. Although the federal government has mandated such health information exchange through the EHR Incentive Program, there is no guidance on how organizations should approach patient data-matching.

ONC's Patient Matching Initiative complement activities currently underway through CHIME StateNet. Convened in May, StateNet’s Patient Data-Matching Workgroup has constructed a charter document to “take a leadership role in establishing a patient matching policy/strategy that is adopted by federal officials, state policymakers and other relevant audiences, such as the vendor community.” The workgroup will identify technologies, implementation practices and data integrity mechanisms (e.g. data entry, versioning, etc.) that will ensure the most efficient, scalable and robust mitigation of patient data-matching errors.

Using the StateNet platform, volunteers consisting of individuals with expertise in developing and implementing consensus standards will agree on a roadmap detailing how organizations could adopt recognized standards and guidelines that would be deemed acceptable for assuring accurate patient data-matching.

“Through the StateNet network, CIOs and other health IT stakeholders have a unique opportunity to provide insight and much needed guidance to policymakers on best practices and strategies to accurately match patient data in an era of increasing health information exchange,” said Branzell.  “We look forward to results from the work ONC is planning and we hope the synergies of their work and ours can solve the dangerous and costly problem of accurately matching patients with their health data.”

Audacious Inquiry (Ai) will support ONC's initiative. Ai has provided market reports on patient matching and other critical topics to support the implementation of health information exchange by the ONC. Ai also provides technical support for the Maryland Health Information Exchange (CRISP) and developed, implemented and oversees patient matching activities in the state.