Advancing a Nationwide Patient Matching Strategy

Rita Torkzadeh, Ben Moscovitch, Josh Rising, Jitin Asnaani, Michelle Michelle De Mooy, Jamie Ferguson, Mark Gingrich, Shaun Grannis, Eric Heflin, Andrew Hohwald, et al.

ResearchPosted on rand.org Aug 22, 2018Published in: Journal of AHIMA, Volume 89, Number 7 (July-August 2018), Pages 30-35

Accurately linking people with information about them that is stored across various systems is common to many life activities—such as when qualifying for a loan or registering to vote. While all industries don't always get data matching right, this problem can be particularly challenging in healthcare. One example of the problem can be seen at a single Houston health system, which reported it has 2,488 records with the patient name Maria Garcia, of which 231 Maria Garcias share the same birth date. Some of these records are likely duplicates, but how many and which ones?

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Document Details

  • Copyright: American Health Information Management Association
  • Availability: Non-RAND
  • Year: 2018
  • Pages: 6
  • Document Number: EP-67682

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