Harris Data Integrity Solutions, the leading provider of best-in-class patient data integrity services and software, has been engaged by University Hospitals (UH) to undertake a comprehensive cleanup of UH Lake Health’s Master Patient Index (MPI) in preparation for the facility’s migration to Epic. In addition to eliminating duplicate and crossover patient records, Harris Data Integrity Solutions will support UH in clearing the hospital’s Roster Management Engine (RME) error queue.
Lake Health, which joined the Cleveland-based University Hospitals health system in April 2021, consists of UH Lake West Medical Center, UH Beachwood Medical Center, and UH TriPoint Medical Center. It is currently migrating to UH’s Epic electronic health record (EHR) system. However, prior to its patient information being integrated into the EHR, Lake Health’s MPI must be analyzed for and subsequently cleaned of any duplicate and potential crossover patient records that may exist across the UH system.
UH’s transition to Epic represents its single largest transformation investment. UH has embarked on a multi-year initiative to implement a new and fully integrated Epic-based EHR. This new system will improve the point of care experience for patients and caregivers, better enable patients to access their personal health information, advance its population health analytics, drive quantifiable clinical and revenue cycle benefits, and enable research and academic excellence.
Harris Data Integrity Solutions, an authorized Epic data remediation consultant, will leverage the EHR system’s possible duplicate/crossover report to perform a cleanup of UH Lake Health’s MPI and provide batch files back to UH for processing within the system. Its team of credentialled and highly experienced patient identity experts will also manage remediation using Harris Data Integrity Solutions’ proprietary automated duplicate resolution technology and third-party data sources, as well as manually when necessary.
The Harris Data Integrity Solutions team will also assist UH with resolving patient record discrepancies that cause them to be placed in the EHR system’s RME error queue. This occurs when data such as order results, documents, etc. cannot be filed automatically into the EHR because of a mismatch or fuzzy match on demographic, medical record number (MRN), or other patient-level data points. Without manual review and remediation, the interface does not know where the information should “live” in the patient chart.
“Duplicate and overlaid patient records can broadly impact patient care, safety, and outcomes, as well as increase costs and sap the productivity of clinicians and HIM professionals by diverting their focus away from core responsibilities. We’re thrilled to be helping UH protect their patients and their EHR investment by ensuring the success of Lake Health’s migration to Epic won’t be hindered by a compromised MPI,” said Lora Hefton, executive vice president of Harris Data Integrity Solutions.
Harris Data Integrity Solutions, the leading provider of best-in-class patient data integrity services and software, has released a white paper that undertakes an in-depth examination of the healthcare industry’s chronic people matching problem. In addition to dissecting the challenges and impacts patient misidentification has on care safety, outcomes, and costs, People Matching in Healthcare: Challenges, Impact and Solutions explores efforts underway on multiple levels to identify a system-wide resolution to the problem.
Lora Hefton
“The tumultuous state of patient matching exposes patients to duplicative and unnecessary testing and services and care delays, exacerbates fraud risks, impacts public health emergency response, and costs the U.S. healthcare system over $6 billion annually in denied claims,” said Lora Hefton, executive vice president of Harris Data Integrity Solutions. “But the future is not as grim as the present might indicate, as our research also found that efforts to identify the right path forward are finding a foothold as stakeholders from across the healthcare continuum come together to remove obstacles and implement effective solutions.”
In People Matching in Healthcare: Challenges, Impact and Solutions, Harris Data Integrity Solutions’ patient identity experts highlight the efforts of Patient ID Now to eliminate legislative barriers hindering exploration of a unique patient identifier, and the collaborative’s work to establish the framework of a national strategy for effective patient identification and matching. They also look at the work undertaken by the Project US@ collaboration, spearheaded by the Office for the National Coordinator (ONC), that resulted in a technical specification for collection of patient addresses, and AHIMA for its related companion guide with operational guidance and best practices.
Harris Healthcare’s Data Integrity Solution Business Unit – which includes patient data integrity powerhouses Just Associates, Inc., and QuadraMed Corporation – have entered a strategic partnership with RightPatient to integrate biometric patient identification into its existing suite of master patient index (MPI) management solutions.
Doing so provides important protections against front-end contamination of the MPI and EMPI and helps eliminate the patient misidentification and safety issues created by “dirty” patient identification data. This is especially important now as spikes in remote patient registrations due to COVID-19 have led to a sharp increase in duplicate patient records.
“Biometric protections from RightPatient perfectly complement our existing suite of patient data integrity solutions by guarding against creation of new duplicate and overlaid patient records at the point of registration, while we focus on creating and maintaining a pristine MPI/EMPI environment and supporting rapid and accurate patient identification,” said Lora Hefton, executive vice president of the Harris Data Integrity Solution (DIS) Business Unit. “This partnership advances our ability to address key health information issues by reducing the volume of potential duplicate medical records while securing patient information and minimizing the ongoing cost of maintaining quality patient data.”
Mohu Sultana, CEO of RightPatient adds: “We live in a very uncertain time. Increased cybersecurity threats put hospitals at risk of losing millions of dollars due to medical identity theft. The long-term impact of COVID-19 is also a critical factor in properly treating patients as we move forward – hospitals must know who is who to ensure proper treatment plans. Reliable patient identification is more important than ever. Our partnership with Harris demonstrates the commitment of both organizations to protecting the entire community against financial loss while ensuring patient safety.”
RightPatient provides the healthcare industry with the most accurate, scalable, hygienic, and versatile HIPAA-compliant, cloud-based photo biometric patient identification service that also publishes patient photos in health records, wristbands, and other applications to improve patient safety.
With easy implementation and seamless integration into any electronic health record (EHR) system – including the SmartID Platform from QuadraMed – RightPatient solutions reduce denied claims, lower medical errors because of misidentification, and prevent duplicate medical records. They also ensure accurate patient identification at any point along the care continuum while protecting medical records against unauthorized access, ransomware attacks and other data breaches.
From data analysis to cleanups, Just Associates performs the critical tasks necessary for hospitals and health systems to achieve and maintain a highly accurate and quality MPI. Its state-of-the-art suite of identity management solutions and services includes continuous duplicate detection with IDSentry – which features HIM workflow and dashboard tools and identifies more true duplicates than systems relying on basic and intermediate patient matching algorithms – as well as IDManage for ongoing MPI management and IDResolve for customized MPI clean-up services.
QuadraMed brings together the expertise, systems knowledge and technology that enable delivery of tailored, value-added solutions that improve healthcare organizations’ financial outcomes and business processes while supporting delivery of quality patient care. Its flagship SmartID Platform is a HIPAA-compliant EMPI management platform that diagnoses, treats, and cures errors, delivering real-time duplicate and overlay detection and robust enterprise-wide patient search based on a probabilistic algorithm with up to 99% accuracy in matching patient records.
To learn more about integration of RightPatient into the MPI/EMPI patient matching and data integrity management solutions from Harris DIS, visit Just Associates’ virtual booth during the AHIMA21 Virtual Conference, taking place through Sept. 22, 2021.
Harris Data Integrity Solutions, the leading provider of best-in-class patient data integrity services and software, has been engaged by University Hospitals (UH) to undertake a comprehensive cleanup of UH Lake Health’s Master Patient Index (MPI) in preparation for the facility’s migration to Epic. In addition to eliminating duplicate and crossover patient records, Harris Data Integrity Solutions will support UH in clearing the hospital’s Roster Management Engine (RME) error queue.