AHIMA’s 2016 advocacy initiative, MyHealthID, aims to educate consumers about the need for a voluntary patient safety identifier as a solution to patient matching.

The organization is asking people to show their support by signing a White House petition that says:

Accurate patient identification is critical to providing safe care. We support a voluntary patient safety identifier and petition for the removal of the federal legislative ban that currently prohibits the US Department of Health and Human Services from participating in efforts to find a patient identification solution. Sharing of electronic health information is being compromised because of patient identification issues. Let’s start the conversation and find a solution.

The petition will be open from March 20 through April 19 and AHIMA wants to collect at least 100,000 signatures during those 30 days.

To help spark national conversation before the petition opens, AHIMA members are encouraged to make a “There’s Only One Me” video and post it on social media, linking to the petition.

AHIMA also has available a toolkit with directions and ideas for educating people about this issue, an introductory webinar on the campaign and research on patient matching.

The petition will be accessible on this webpage.