EHR Intelligence June 16, 2020
Patient matching has been a hot button issue for over two decades and the National Patient Identifier could be the final answer.
Patient matching issues have surrounded the healthcare industry for decades. Patient matching, or the ability to connect the correct medical data to the appropriate patient, is a key patient safety issue made complicated by limited interoperability and data governance. One potential fix that has been particularly controversial, yet brought up on occasion, is the National Patient Identifier (NPI).
Patient matching aims to connect patient records across different medical providers or facilities. The same patient visiting two different doctors or two different hospitals should always have the correct medical record brought up. However, this does not always happen, and...