To solve patient ID problems, act local but think global: AHIMA journal

One of the most basic steps in caring for patients continues to vex many healthcare providers, and that’s the case not just in the U.S. but also around the world. The step is matching patients with their records. The problem is the subject of an article in a special edition, international in scope, of Perspectives in Health Information Management.

In “Accurate Patient Identification—a Global Challenge,” Lorraine Fernandes, regional director of the Americas for the International Federation of Health Information Management Associations, and Michele O’Connor, of healthcare IT vendor QuadraMed, pointed out that the issue has gained attention recently as technology adoption increases and interoperability becomes a reality. 

Fernandes and O'Connor explored aspects of patient-identification strategies in the U.S., Singapore, Canada, Australia and Wales. In the latter, for example, the authors report that numerous hurdles have been jumped such that, today, clinical staffs see unified patient views and can instantly identify where supporting records are held.

“A unified view of patient data across care settings must be created despite the variability in data capture, systems, and standards (or lack thereof) in order to meet the goals of improved quality and lower costs,” they wrote. “Without a unified view of data, clinicians and caregivers will continue to struggle with inaccurate or incomplete information. This mantra is not unique to any specific country but is a universal truth as the rise of chronic disease and aging population stress healthcare budgets around the globe.”

The authors provided three pointers that, they say, can be applied to all countries working to improve existing patient identification practices or develop new models:

1. Governance comes first. “Defining and applying information and data governance frameworks first, not as an afterthought, is a key to success,” wrote Fernandes and O’Connor.  
2. Existing identifiers likely have inherent limitations or data quality issues. “Even the best of identifiers will fall apart if rigid queries are created for accessing the identifier or if the identifier was not designed to support data exchange and coordination of services.”
3. Don’t forget about the clinicians and the consumers. “Governments may follow defined processes, hire consultants to explore issues, and create the 'perfect' legislation, but these efforts will all be for naught if clinicians are not actively engaged in designing a system to support data exchange. Consumers should be engaged early to explore what an identifier might imply and the potential restrictions.”

Perspectives in Health Information Management is the online research journal of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA).