To improve health data quality and patient matching, 4medica will conduct a thorough quality assessment of the health data of the East Tennessee Health Information Network, then run the data through a master patient index 4 layers.
WHY IT IMPORTANT
According to the announcement, the Marina Del Rey, California-based data management company said the data quality platform can reduce patient duplication rates to less than 1%.
etHIN reaches 80% of communities in the Tennessee area and has patient records from all 95 of the state’s counties as well as patients from other states who have been treated in the area.
According to Pam Matthews, CEO and executive director of etHIN, HIE needs support to help identify the source of data challenges and improve the quality of data that HIE receives from healthcare organizations and other sources.
“4medica’s expertise will allow us to be a better data custodian for our participants and partners across Tennessee, and help improve the quality of care delivered by providers.” our data provides,” she said.
“We are excited to work with etHIN and its watershed data partners to reduce duplicate records, improve health data quality, and produce better outcomes for individuals and communities.” community it serves,” added Gregg Church, president of 4medica.
TREND TO BIGGER
The company says the rate of duplicate patient records can be as high as 30% in some medical institutions.
As clinicians and laboratories struggle to identify patient information, “they often choose to create a different file for the patient rather than spend more valuable time searching,” 4medica said in a statement. newspaper.
New patient records may lack important clinical information contained in existing records, while older records will not include data added to new records. Or, half of the patient’s notes can be reproduced in the new record.
Using natural language processing, the researchers found that 50% of the records contained duplicate patient notes.
Last year, a team from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia used artificial intelligence to study how “full of notes” were in anonymous patient records for five years.
Church says Healthcare IT News that AI can assist providers in establishing clean health records.
After 4medica researched patient records related to COVID-19, including paperwork requests made by labs, the company discovered cases of three or four records for an individual who could resulting in higher costs for healthcare organizations and increased risks for patients.
ON PROFILE
“At the end of the day, patients’ lives are at stake and we know when HIEs have the tools to get good data, they can make meaningful change to healthcare in their communities.” them,” Church said in the statement.
“Ultimately, patients are the most important beneficiary because quality data improves the care they receive from their providers,” says Matthews.
Andrea Fox is the senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: [email protected]
Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS.
