SA review of more than 700 comments on a proposed rule to standardize the exchange of electronic health records points to one major concern: inconsistently or improperly recorded patient names.
Multiple patients often share names and birth dates, and without unique identifiers, their records may be combined or split accidentally. Researchers have previously said the issue might be especially challenging for rural skilled nursing providers, who serve small communities in which mothers and daughters or fathers and sons frequently share names.
Commenting on the issue closes Monday. Bloomberg News reported Tuesday that the Health and Human Services Administration will determine if its Office for the National Coordinator for Health IT will coordinate patient-matching efforts in the industry.
HHS has set a 2022 goal for requiring all health-care organizations to exchange health records electronically.
“Today, there is no consistent approach to accurately matching a patient to their health information, which has led to significant costs to hospitals, health systems, physician practices, long-term post-acute care (LTPAC) facilities, and other providers,” Wylecia Wiggs Harris, chief executive officer of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), commented.
Poor patient matching can lead to compromised care coordination and unnecessary costs related to duplicate testing or other interventions, Eric Heflin, chief technology officer at the Sequoia Project, told Bloomberg.
Mixed records also can lead to medical mistakes. Bloomberg pointed to a Government Accountability Report from early this year that found a patient died after a DNR order was mistakenly applied.
