EMPI

Successful, meaningful, and productive exchange of health information depends on the accuracy and integrity of patient identification procedures.  Sending health information for the wrong patient can initiate negative repercussions, including inappropriate patient care, privacy breaches, data quality degradation, and eroding trust from patients and stakeholders.

Patient identity challenges arise because healthcare applications store patient information in their own way, and assign application-specific local identifiers.  But even with standards, best practices, and neo-monolithic systems in place, it is still possible to create duplicate, slightly similar, or overlapping records for the same patient.  And when patient information is shared between applications, the chances of exchanging incorrect data increase significantly because there is no mechanism ensuring the data are in fact relating to the same patient.

The NextGate Enterprise Master Patient Index (EMPI) remediates patient identification issues, and promotes the exchange of accurate patient information across the healthcare ecosystem.    And when departments and organizations can confidently share data on the same patient, they advance in their pursuit of better patient safety, enhanced quality of care, and reduced healthcare delivery costs.

The NextGate EMPI uses finely tuned probabilistic algorithms to identify, match, merge, de-duplicate, and cleanse patient records, and stores them in a centralized master index of patient data.  The EMPI evaluates data from disparate systems, creates an enterprise unique identifier (EUID) for the record, and maintains a map between the EUID and all the local identifiers associated with that patient.  This approach allows applications to continue using their internal identifiers or the EUID if the system is capable. A pragmatic data stewardship interface gives authorized personnel the ability to review edit any EMPI transaction.

By using the sophisticated features and logic of the NextGate EMPI, organizations can reduce duplicate patient records, exchange health information with greater confidence, and construct a panoramic view.