Telehealth Is Here to Stay – Ensure Patient Data Integrity While Using It

September 30, 2020/11172 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Connected Health, Data Integrity, Duplicate Medical Records, EHR, healthcare, Medical Identity Theft, Patient Data, Patient Identification, Patient Safety, Photo Biometrics, Telehealth /by Matt Gibson

To put it bluntly, the coronavirus pandemic has been catastrophic for the entire world. The U.S. has been leading with the highest number of cases – 6,550,637 at this point. However, there has been a silver lining in the whole coronavirus pandemic – telehealth. Not only did it experience a meteoric rise in the U.S., but it also helped to flatten the curve – patients don’t have any risk of contracting the virus when they use telehealth. While the increased usage of telehealth demonstrates that it’s here to stay for the foreseeable future, healthcare providers must ensure that they are protecting patient data integrity during these visits. Let’s see how accurate patient identification can help.

Telehealth’s rise

Telehealth isn’t anything new – it’s been in the healthcare space for quite some time now. Sadly, people were busy debating its pros and cons for years. However, 2020 will be remembered as the year of telehealth – its potential was showcased during the pandemic.

People praised its elimination of the physical barriers required for healthcare – people would be able to consult with their caregivers without having to worry about the novel coronavirus – a stable internet connection and a communication device are all they need. It enabled healthcare services to be continued at a time when social distancing was required – creating a win-win situation for all. Laws were relaxed regarding telehealth while providers and officials urged patients to use telehealth instead of coming for hospital visits. Quite naturally, the usage increased exponentially. Let’s take a look at an example – MUSC Health and its experience with telehealth.

They used “virtual urgent care technology” – something that was initially created to provide patients with a way to be observed for non-critical cases, and converted that to screen potential COVID-19 patients. Moreover, they had the capabilities and resources to dramatically adapt tools to better fight the pandemic. They also enabled remote patient monitoring and a telesitter program as part of their approach, and they believe that telehealth is here to stay. Overall, healthcare providers in the past few months have observed that telehealth can be used to provide patient care while mitigating the risk of contracting COVID-19.

Some stats regarding telehealth usage

The current stats are in line with the providers’ experiences with telehealth. McKinsey & Company stated that in 2019, a meager 11% of the U.S. patients were using telehealth. As of April 2020, 46% of the patients are using telehealth. Even healthcare providers witnessed around 50-175 times more patients using telehealth visits compared to the pre-pandemic period. However, one has to consider the risks associated with it just like with inpatient visits, for instance, patient data integrity, patient identification, and medical identity theft.

Patient data integrity must be ensured

It’s quite natural that some of the issues plaguing conventional healthcare might be seen during telehealth visits as well. One of the biggest challenges is preventing medical identity theft.

Healthcare data breaches have been occurring more than ever, where most of the stolen patient data is sold off to fraudsters. They then assume the identities of the victims and use their healthcare services. This leads not only to billing the victims for services they never used but also corrupts the patient data – because the fraudsters’ data is saved in the victims’ medical records. Thus, patient data integrity is compromised in the process.

Experts believe that the pandemic will lead to increased numbers of medical identity theft cases. This is because patient data is not adequately protected by the majority of caregivers due to budgetary issues. Moreover, with the pandemic causing arguably the worst financial crisis healthcare has ever faced, providers need to consider every option in order to survive.

RightPatient ensures patient data integrity – even during telehealth visits

While healthcare data breaches are inevitable, medical identity theft can be prevented. One of the reasons why medical identity theft has become a major threat is because there is no proper patient identity verification system in place to prevent these crimes. Most of the patient identification systems use credentials – something that can be stolen or transferred.

Fortunately, RightPatient can help prevent medical identity theft. It uses the thing that fraudsters or hackers cannot steal – patients’ visual likeness. Using a photo-based search engine, RightPatient matches the photos of the selfie provided during appointment scheduling with the patient’s driver’s license. Fraudsters are red-flagged immediately, preventing medical identity theft in real-time.

During inpatient visits, all the patients need to do is look at the camera – the platform matches the photo it takes with the one it saved during registration. This creates a safe, hygienic, and touchless environment for everyone involved – something which became more crucial than ever due to the pandemic.

RightPatient helps maintain patient data integrity by ensuring that the accurate medical record is associated with the correct patient every time, preventing medical identity theft, and avoiding duplicate medical records. Try RightPatient now to see how it can help you enhance patient safety during these trying times.

How Can Medical Identity Theft Occur During Telehealth Visits?

July 29, 2020/9866 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, COVID-19, Data Integrity, EHR, healthcare, Medical Identity Theft, Patient Identification, Patient Matching, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety, Photo Biometrics, Telehealth /by Matt Gibson

Telehealth has been around for years, but it has only been growing exponentially for the past few months. One of the biggest propellers that caused the surge in telehealth usage is the coronavirus pandemic, while the other reason is its benefit of taking healthcare out of the regular setting and setting up safe and remote environments for the patients and caregivers. While many predict that telehealth is here to stay after seeing how it can benefit caregivers and patients, health systems and hospitals need to focus on another important aspect – how can medical identity theft occur during telehealth visits, and is it preventable? Fortunately, it can be – with RightPatient. Let’s dive deep.

Telehealth skyrocketed due to COVID-19

Since telehealth was introduced, experts in the US healthcare system have been busy debating its pros and cons, affecting its growth and questioning its capabilities. However, as the pandemic has shown, telehealth has been extremely crucial for the US healthcare system during its ongoing battle against the pandemic. It has helped reduce the risk of more COVID-19 cases as non-COVID-19 patients were recommended to use telehealth instead of inpatient visits.

As previously mentioned, the biggest benefit of telehealth is that it enables patients and caregivers to engage in healthcare remotely. All they need is a good internet connection and devices to communicate with each other – eliminating any chances of contracting the virus as opposed to inpatient visits during the pandemic. Thus, it is no surprise that telehealth demand has been sky-high, with experts predicting over one billion visits during 2020 alone. While providers are quickly adapting to the changes and using telehealth, hospitals and health systems must also think about a serious problem – how can medical identity theft occur during telehealth usage?

Medical identity theft is all over the place

Medical identity theft is nothing new. Hackers steal valuable patient information through healthcare data breaches. They sell it for up to $1000 per record on the black market to fraudsters. Since healthcare is quite expensive, these fraudsters prefer buying patient information from hackers for a much cheaper price, shifting the healthcare costs onto the shoulders of the victims.

Medical identity theft is becoming quite prevalent. In 2019 alone, more patient records were breached in comparison to the previous three years combined. Medical identity theft leads to lawsuits, patient safety issues, settlement costs up to $250,000, unwanted attention, and loss of goodwill. Thus, it becomes increasingly necessary to ensure that medical identity theft is prevented, even during telehealth visits.

But how can medical identity theft occur during telehealth? Well, the stolen information can be easily used by the fraudster to bypass the obsolete patient identification systems most hospitals have – just like inpatient visits. Moreover, many patients sometimes even give their credentials to their family members or friends willingly – aiding them in medical identity theft.

Such cases lead to added costs like medical record clean-ups, lack of patient data integrity, and patient safety issues, among other problems. Hospitals are facing huge losses already due to the pandemic, and they need to recover their losses if they want to survive in the future. One of the best ways to do all of that is by ensuring positive patient identification.

Accurate patient identification with RightPatient

RightPatient is the healthcare industry’s leading touchless patient identification platform. It locks the medical records of the patients with their photos upon enrollment. Whenever the patient comes, all he/she needs to do is look at the camera and the platform matches the photos and provides the correct medical record within seconds. RightPatient seamlessly integrates with the major EHR systems, enhancing the experience for providers as well. It is hygienic too, enhancing patient safety and reducing infection control issues.

While it has been ensuring accurate patient identification for providers for years, RightPatient brings the same expertise to telehealth. It can also be used to remotely validate a patient’s identity. Patients receive an SMS or email after scheduling an appointment, after which they need to take a selfie and photos of their driver’s license. RightPatient automatically matches the photos of the driver’s license and the selfie to validate patient identity – preventing medical identity theft in the process.

RightPatient has been successfully protecting over 10 million patient records and preventing fraudsters from harming patients while reducing healthcare costs, denied claims, lawsuits, and boosting the bottom lines in the process. Protect your patients – even during telehealth visits – with RightPatient.

Improve Quality and Safety in Healthcare With Touchless Patient Identification

June 25, 2020/11342 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, COVID-19, Facial Reciognition, healthcare, Infection Control, Iris Recognition, News, Patient Engagement, Patient Experience, Patient Matching, Patient Safety, Photo Biometrics /by Ryan Stephens

In the medical field, elective procedures are surgeries that can be scheduled in advance, including those that are medically required. The U.S. healthcare industry is losing millions of dollars due to canceled elective procedures. Studies have found that surgical stays account for approximately 48% of hospitalization costs and elective procedures bring in $700 more per admission than emergency room admissions. For obvious reasons, many people have stopped going to hospitals, even those with critical medical conditions, since the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. On the bright side, more than half of the health consumers now feel moderately safe about returning for elective procedures. But much of it will hinge on ensuring quality and safety in healthcare.

Hospitals are considering when and how to recommence elective procedures as the surge in COVID-19 patients in some areas of the country has slowed down. But families and patients will want to know what changes the healthcare providers made from when they were told to stay at home. They want reassurance that hospitals have undertaken appropriate measures for ensuring quality and safety in healthcare delivery, and it will take time and proper resources for physicians to convince the consumers.

Key takeaways

In a recent webinar panel discussion with some patient and family advisors conducted by Vizient, they found out that patients are likely to return to elective procedures in waves. The initial wave will include those who will come forward no matter the risks, such as oncology patients, patients with impairment affecting their daily life activities, or those in pain. This will be followed by the second wave, who may return if they feel safe about hospital hygiene, for instance, low risks of getting infected or a low-risk procedure with a minimum follow up. Other findings also include transparency and communications. To feel safe, patients will want to know that safety and infection prevention processes are in action, including cleaning of handrails, elevators, and other high-touch surfaces, and clinicians wearing personal protective equipment throughout the care.

Feel safe with RightPatient’s touchless patient identification platform

As the aforementioned examples suggest, patients will demand assurance from providers that they are taking actions to ensure quality and safety in healthcare delivery. Adopting RightPatient’s platform is an ideal strategy to make sure of that. Elective procedures or not, at the initial stage, identifying patients accurately and matching their medical records is an integral part of the healthcare delivery process. As an industry leader, RightPatient has helped many healthcare providers tackle the patient identification crisis and improved quality and safety in healthcare delivery. With patients demanding more hygienic solutions, RightPatient’s touchless identification process can help hospitals convince healthcare consumers to come in during this or a post-COVID-19 crisis.

RightPatient is an entirely touchless biometric patient identification platform. From pre-procedure through discharge, this platform can match a patient’s identity and pull up their correct medical records throughout the continuum of patient care. All a patient needs to do is get their photo captured by a smartphone, tablet, or a webcam from a safe distance, and RightPatient will instantly identify the patient and bring up their medical records. Additionally, RightPatient also has a remote patient authentication model. During this process, RightPatient can validate patient identities while they are at home by comparing their ID (e.g.driver’s license) and selfie photos.

Clinical efficiency and positive patient experience will play a key role in hospitals gaining back their momentum. With RightPatient, patients can be reassured that their medical records are secure and healthcare providers can be at ease knowing there is zero chance of making a blunder in matching a patient’s identity. Besides accurate identification, this platform helps prevent medical identity theft and duplicate medical records as well, overall enhancing quality and safety in healthcare delivery.

Improving Patient Safety in Hospitals as They Reopen Post-COVID-19

June 22, 2020/5815 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Patient Identification, Patient Safety, Photo Biometrics /by Matt Gibson

To say that the coronavirus pandemic will change the world is an understatement. It can never be stressed enough as to how much it has and will continue to impact our lives. After lockdowns were implemented for months to reduce the cases of infections, states are opening up slowly with precautions still in place. The US healthcare system is no exception – some providers are planning to open up while shuttered hospitals are planning to reopen due to the coronavirus. With all that in mind, one issue must have the highest priority now – improving patient safety in hospitals. This article will talk about some ways in which hospitals can reopen safely along with tools that can help them do that.

Improving patient safety in hospitals – some strategies

Come up with a plan

As the US is in a very delicate situation right now, it can only be helped if the providers reopen safely and treat the patients successfully, and all of this starts with an effective plan. Plan the important days accordingly, especially the reopening day. It is wise to take it slowly and reopen in phases rather than opening a hospital all at once, but more on that later. Make an inventory of all the necessary tools and materials at hand that are required for protecting and serving patients, especially PPE. Reordering might be required, so ensure that it is done well in advance to reduce disruptions while providing healthcare services. Also, if not already in place, plans must be made on how to deal with patients or employees with COVID-19 on the premises. This will be the new normal for quite some time, so planning for such scenarios ahead will be beneficial.

Open in phases

While many are already adopting this strategy, it is still worth mentioning why it is important. Opening in phases can help detect which areas of the hospital still need to be addressed, if required, and can be done so easily. Moreover, this will also help to accommodate employees on alternate days—reducing contact and risk of contracting the virus. It will give an overview of the problems and opportunities and give everyone time to come up with solutions for dealing with them.

Have safety measures in place

Even though there will be immense pressure on health systems, they need to ensure that patients are not overflowing all the time to maintain social distancing to some extent. For starters, hospitals need to ensure that patients are segregated to keep the ones potentially infected with COVID-19 separated from the ones that do not have it, improving patient safety in hospitals.

Ensuring that everyone on the premises is wearing PPE is a must. Also, ensuring that everyone is maintaining distance, whether employees or patients, is quite important—rearranging layouts to ensure that distance is maintained can help. Also, ensure that minimal contact is required, especially in places like the EDs, since that is where most cases will be present.

If employees exhibit any of the symptoms of COVID-19, encourage them to take leaves, as keeping them in the workplace will only make matters worse.

Support your remote employees

Telehealth has been one of the most useful tools during the pandemic, and it will be used thoroughly in the future as well. Ensure that the remote physicians are properly accessing and using the tools required for telehealth so that the patients who can be served via telehealth do not need to come to the premises, reducing the chances of infections.

However, other than physicians, other employees are also working from home either on alternate days or for the foreseeable future. This is being done to reduce infection rates by practicing social distancing. Ensure that the employees are receiving enough support to carry out their tasks to provide better healthcare outcomes, improving patient safety in hospitals in the process.

Use solutions to reduce infection rates and administrative burden

The US healthcare system is inundated with a plethora of problems. While they are not new and have solutions to mitigate them, many are still not using these solutions; thus, they are still suffering from the issues. With the coronavirus pandemic in mind, it is high time that these problems are addressed by healthcare providers.

First off, let’s look into HIPAA compliance issues. Even though HIPAA penalties have been relaxed, for now, there are still many rules and regulations that need to be followed. While healthcare providers are already working around the clock to serve patients, ensuring HIPAA compliance can be a huge challenge, given the situation. Using solutions like HIPAAReady can reduce the administrative burden and simplify compliance management. With internal auditing, training management, and keeping HIPAA information in a centralized location, HIPAAReady is already an attractive HIPAA compliance software to mitigate HIPAA compliance issues.

Patient identification errors, on the other hand, have been haunting providers for decades. It has been an impediment to improving patient safety in hospitals. While many have been using different identification solutions like fingerprint scanning and palm-vein scanning, the pandemic will render these modalities obsolete. Earlier, infection control issues were only a headache of the providers, but the pandemic will make patients reluctant to use any identification solution requiring touch. Fortunately, there are already touchless biometric patient identification solutions available with RightPatient being the most appropriate one. After registration, the platform requires the patient to only look at the camera. The platform matches it with the registered template and retrieves the accurate medical record within seconds. All of these require no physical contact from the patient, enhancing patient safety as well as acceptance.

Providers like Terrebonne General Medical Center and Community Medical Centers are already using RightPatient and have chosen it as there are no infection control issues surrounding the platform like other modalities, making it an ideal patient identification solution in a post-COVID-19 world. When providers are losing millions due to the pandemic, deploy RightPatient and mitigate losses by ensuring touchless patient identification, preventing medical identity theft, and reducing denied claims.

Medical Identity Theft Cases can hamper Telehealth – How are you Identifying Patients?

May 28, 2020/5590 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Medical Identity Theft, Patient Identification, Photo Biometrics /by Matt Gibson

COVID-19 has been one of the most impactful events in recent years. While some parts of the world are preparing to reopen or are easing lockdowns in phases, the general population is still on edge as there is no cure for the novel coronavirus, which has affected over 3.9 million people worldwide as of 8th May 2020. However, some applications have seen meteoric growth during this challenging period – telehealth is one area. However, since practitioners have to deal with patients remotely, there can be potential medical identity theft cases here as well. How can practitioners find out they are treating the right patient? Are there solutions available to ensure accurate patient identification?

The rise of telehealth

Telehealth has been around for years now, with many people debating about its pros and cons. However, 2020 seems to be the year of telehealth. It has revealed how effective telehealth can be for virtual care visits and one of the most effective ways to provide patient care while we practice social distancing. Telehealth is at an all-time high – Forrester Research estimates that over a billion telehealth visits will take place this year alone, where 900 million of the visits will be due to COVID-19. Telehealth in March alone saw a 50% increase in services due to the pandemic.

This huge increase in numbers was boosted due to the U.S. government encouraging patients to use telehealth instead of attending for physical visits to their medical professionals to minimize the risk of COVID-19 spread.

Medical identity theft cases may rise

Telehealth is having its long-overdue success and spotlight, thanks to how it is helping treat patients remotely right now as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it does have to keep some factors in mind to ensure that proper care is given to the right patients. Are caregivers ensuring that the proper patient is being treated? Do they have the tools to verify it?

While people have shared their credentials with family members in the past, there is no guarantee that this will not repeat itself, especially given the current financial problems the pandemic is causing. With frequent data breaches occurring, it may be quite easy for someone else to assume the identity of another patient.

While there have not been any reported cases as of yet, caregivers must remain vigilant and attempt to verify a patient’s identity. Doing that can be challenging as practitioners are facing a huge number of calls per day and may not have the right tools or resources for effective patient identification. Medical identity theft cases were already prevalent during normal times, and the same might happen with telehealth too.

Thankfully, a solution exists

Leading healthcare providers have been using RightPatient for years now. It is a contactless biometric patient identification platform that locks the EHRs (electronic health record) of the patients with their biometric data. This ensures that outsiders cannot assume the identity of a patient and gain access to healthcare services. RightPatient has been successfully preventing medical identity theft cases, reducing duplicate record creation, and improving the revenue cycle of hospitals for years by ensuring accurate patient identification whenever patients arrive.

How can it be used for telehealth? Well, RightPatient came up with the perfect solution for the pandemic – caregivers can now validate patients’ identities remotely. When a patient confirms the appointment with the practitioner, he/she is notified with a text message to provide a photo of their driver’s license as well as a selfie. RightPatient automatically matches the photos to ensure the patient’s identity, saving caregivers from financial burdens, and mitigating risks of treating the wrong patient.

RightPatient already has years of experience, and with remote authentication, it has created the perfect tool for health care providers using telehealth. Ensure accurate patient identification and prevent medical identity theft, whether you’re treating patients in person or remotely via telehealth.

Why The Coronavirus Makes Patient Identification More Critical Than Ever

March 11, 2020/6073 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Infection Control, Patient Identification, Patient Safety, Photo Biometrics /by Michael Trader

In case you’ve been sleeping under a rock somewhere, the COVID-19 coronavirus is causing global concern, with some health professionals and media outlets already referring to the outbreak as a pandemic.

The lack of available testing kits in the U.S. has hindered our ability to accurately determine the actual scale of the problem here. However, as of this writing, we do know that coronavirus has infected more than 108,000 people globally, with nearly 600 cases in the U.S. and 22 deaths.

With the virus continuing to spread in the U.S., those experiencing symptoms are being advised to call their healthcare provider. While many healthcare providers and states are preparing to handle the growing outbreak, many patients are seeking treatment at emergency rooms where the risk of spreading the virus to other patients and health workers can increase dramatically.

In addition, some patients that do not meet certain testing criteria may not be immediately diagnosed as having coronavirus. Accurate patient identification is absolutely critical in these circumstances to help contain the growth of coronavirus infections.

Imagine a patient who arrives at the ER with respiratory symptoms but does not meet the testing criteria. The patient could be treated without needed precautions and released. If the patient returned later with worsening or other symptoms and was misidentified, the clinical team would not have access to critical information that could immediately trigger the prerequisites of a coronavirus infection, putting every person in that facility at even greater risk.

Biometric patient identification can certainly help to prevent these mistakes. However, the type of biometric technology being utilized can have significant consequences. For example, healthcare providers using contact-dependent devices such as palm vein biometrics may risk exacerbating the spread of the coronavirus. That particular modality requires patients to place their entire hand on a plastic mold to read their vein pattern.

Under the current market conditions, would you want to touch that device, especially knowing that every other patient was being instructed to do the same?

At a minimum, healthcare workers would need to disinfect the device after every patient encounter. This is not a practical or safe approach.

IT companies in Hyderabad India have actually been instructed to suspend use of fingerprint biometric systems for employees as standard operating procedure if the coronavirus is detected on their premises. If this is being advised for employee time and attendance in an IT company, will healthcare providers continue to ask each and every patient to touch a biometric device across their locations? If not, how will the risk of patient misidentification contribute to the spread of coronavirus?

Since our inception, we have advocated for using the RightPatient platform with our photo-based engine. This was based on 18 years of experience in biometric software and our vision for the company. We are now the leader in this space with many providers using our platform.

One factor involved in our decision-making process was hygiene and infection control. Our photo-based biometric patient authentication platform does not require patients to touch anything, which is ideal in a healthcare environment even under normal market conditions, but particularly now in light of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

Our mission is to prevent medical identity theft and duplicate medical records to mitigate risk for healthcare providers while improving patient safety, data quality, and revenue cycle. Especially now, accurate patient identification is critically important but providers should think about the risks of a contact-dependent solution. They should also consider the experience, vision, and track record of their vendor to select a trusted partner that will always keep them ahead of the curve.

At the Becker’s Conference, learn how RightPatient prevents patient fraud

September 19, 2017/10411 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Events/Conferences, healthcare, Medical Identity Theft, Mobile, Patient Identification, Patient Safety, Photo Biometrics, Privacy /by Michael Trader

The Becker’s 2017 (and 3rd annual) Health IT & Revenue Cycle Conference is only a few days away! Needless to say, we’re excited, and it’s not just because George W. Bush and Sugar Ray Leonard will be there. The conference has a great lineup of speakers, presentations, and, ahem, vendors like RightPatient that will be providing a wealth of information on a variety of important topics.

The timing of this conference could not be better considering the recent Equifax data breach, which puts over 140 million Americans at risk of identity theft. This has serious implications for healthcare, but the good news is that patients and providers can mitigate their risk with RightPatient.

Since our inception, we have always recommended Photo Biometrics with RightPatient and have never deviated from that position. This didn’t come out of left field; we are, by far, the most experienced vendor in our market segment with 15 years of experience in biometric technology. We have worked with many biometric modalities, implemented our technology in projects around the world, built some massive biometric matching systems, and generally know this stuff inside and out. That’s why we always knew what was best for healthcare and had a vision of how Photo Biometrics would be used with our platform to transform the way that patients are identified.

RightPatient accurately identifies patients by simply capturing their photo. At provider locations, this is critical to prevent identification errors and medical record mix-ups that affect patient safety, revenue cycle, and data integrity. With 1,000 patients dying each day from preventable medical errors and hospitals writing off millions of dollars annually from denied claims and patient fraud, health systems should have an easy time justifying RightPatient.

But, for good measure, we now have the Equifax breach. Patient fraud was already a serious issue with 2-10% of patients showing up at the ED and providing false information (I’m looking at you, frequent flyers). We’ve heard countless stories from customers before they implemented RightPatient about frequent card sharing and outright fraud that was costing them millions in annual write-offs (RightPatient has since eliminated these issues). With the personal data of over 140 million Americans now compromised, how much easier will it be for someone to obtain care, access healthcare information, or gain a medical record release under a stolen identity?

Here’s the bigger question – why deal with any of these risks at all? For a small monthly fee, healthcare providers could implement RightPatient and solve these issues. When patients interact with their providers, RightPatient captures their picture and accurately identifies them. The service is contactless (ideal for hygiene/infection control), supports mobile devices (e.g. EMTs, unconscious patients, home health visits), and the patient photos that RightPatient simultaneously captures deliver unparalleled value in various ways.

If you have a chance, stop by our booth #1003 at the Becker’s Conference to check out why RightPatient is transforming patient ID in healthcare and to learn about our vision. We look forward to seeing you there!

Prevent Patient Record Mix-Ups Before It’s Too Late

September 6, 2017/11141 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, healthcare, Medical Identity Theft, Mobile, Patient Identification, Patient Safety, Photo Biometrics /by Mizan Rahman

It’s no secret that patient identification is a challenge, but unfortunately, a frightening number of “wrong patient, right procedure” mix-ups still occur every day in hospitals and health systems around the country.

For example, an article published on bostonglobe.com highlighted a case at UMass Memorial Medical Center where a patient was mistakenly diagnosed with cancer and underwent unneeded medical procedures before hospital staff discovered a mix-up with the patient’s CT scan results. And, according to the article, this is far from an isolated case of mistaken patient identity at this hospital.

The good news is that there are tools that can help hospitals and health systems prevent such dangerous mistakes.

The RightPatient® Cloud, for example, is designed to prevent mix-ups and cases of mistaken identity by streamlining patient identification procedures and reducing the risk of human error—all while dramatically increasing the chances that the right patient receives the right treatment from the right providers.

Most hospitals and health systems rely solely on patient identification procedures that require healthcare staff to use two pieces of patient information, such as full name and date of birth, to match patients to their medical records.

However, in today’s bustling healthcare atmosphere, it can be easy for healthcare staff to forget to perform proper patient identification procedures. And, many patients do not speak English, are unconscious or have similar names and birth dates, all of which increase the risk of medical mix-ups.

Healthcare regulators and public health officials are increasingly sending the message to hospitals and health systems that the time to make changes to patient identification procedures is now—before a potentially disastrous mistake occurs.

By implementing the RightPatient system, hospitals can eliminate patient identification guesswork for healthcare staff. That’s because the RightPatient system captures a photo of each patient upon admission to the hospital.

After the patient is enrolled in the system, the patient’s medical record is locked and can only be opened using the patient’s unique biometric identifiers. The system can be installed on any smartphone or tablet, making it portable enough to meet the unique needs of staff and patients.

Although hospitals are spending millions of dollars on electronic health record systems, population health software and other advanced equipment to protect patients and streamline operations, most of these systems overlook a fundamental aspect of patient safety: Ensuring that healthcare staff are accessing the right records and providing the right care to the right patient.

The bottom line is that healthcare consumers go to hospitals to get well and hard-working doctors and nurses do everything in their power to make that happen. When patients are not identified correctly, bad things happen.
The sad fact is that one simple medical record mix-up resulting from a patient mismatch is all that it takes to throw a patient and their family into distress, negate the hard work and dedication of the doctors and nurses who are trying to help, and damage the reputation of the hospital where the incident occurred.

With RightPatient, all that is required to eliminate these risks is a simple snap of a camera when a patient walks into the hospital. That doesn’t sound like too much to ask, does it?

Mobile Patient Identification with the RightPatient Smart App

June 15, 2017/11320 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Connected Health, Data Integrity, Future of Biometrics, healthcare, Mobile, Patient Identification, Patient Safety, Photo Biometrics /by Michael Trader

Amidst the hoopla and chaos of this year’s HIMSS conference in Orlando, we introduced a new feature for our cloud-based RightPatient biometric patient identification solution: the RightPatient Smart App. This is ~~kind of~~ a big deal for the healthcare industry because the RightPatient Smart App has the power to turn any smartphone or tablet into a powerful patient recognition device.

In other words, this is anything but a ho-hum development in the concerted effort to adopt more modern patient ID technology. Allow me to explain…

As we have written about before, increased recognition of the critical importance of accurate patient identification for patient safety has played an important role in our own research and development of the RightPatient cloud biometric patient identification solution. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that most patients see patient identification as the part of our healthcare experience that starts with sitting in front of a registrar at a healthcare facility so they can obtain our insurance information and make sure we are who we claim to be.

However, anyone who has spent time as a patient in a healthcare environment knows that most medical facilities don’t stop with establishing accurate identification at the point of registration. You may have your ID checked before medication disbursement, prior to the administration of a medical procedure, or perhaps just before surgery. This is important for patient safety, and to reduce the risk of adverse events from wrong patient procedures.

The problem is that many patient identification mistakes are still regularly made across the healthcare industry. This can cause irreparable harm to patients and providers in many cases. Fortunately, we provide the most innovative technology in the market to solve this problem.

For example, the RightPatient Smart App is a modern, mobile patient identification solution that fills an important void to help healthcare organizations improve compliance and patient safety. Here is a breakdown of the Smart App features and their value to patient identification in healthcare:

Mobile patient ID ubiquity: As mentioned earlier, the RightPatient Smart App turns any smartphone or tablet into a powerful mobile patient identification tool. Is this a big deal? Absolutely. The Smart App improves the ability of clinicians and others responsible for care administration to be responsible stewards of patient safety and compliance. It can be used as a multi-factor authentication tool along with another form of identification or act as a standalone patient ID device. Recognize patients anywhere, anytime, with any smart device.
Patient photo: The Smart App matches against the patient photo that was captured by RightPatient during registration for positive identification. We have previously written about the importance of capturing high-quality patient photos and linking them to their electronic health records. RightPatient ensures that a standardized, high-quality enrollment photo is always captured. This increases the efficacy of the Smart App and ensures that providers have images that they can rely on for clinical context.
Identifying unconscious patients: There are few things in healthcare more risky than treating an unconscious patient without access to their medical history. The RightPatient Smart App allows clinicians to easily identify unconscious patients through their smartphone to retrieve the patient’s medical record. The Smart App opens the door for accurate patient identification in traditional and non-traditional settings (e.g. – oncology, medical records release, EMTs, home health) – places where perhaps verifying a patient’s identity is required but may not have traditionally been on the compliance radar. The Smart App fills in the patient ID compliance holes that exist in a healthcare organization – enabling higher levels of patient safety and helping to reduce medical errors and risk.

Medical errors caused by patient misidentification will continue to rise with increased data sharing and human error. In fact, the ECRI institute recently included patient identification errors in its most recent annual top-10 list of patient safety concerns. Powered by the RightPatient cloud platform, the Smart App will strengthen patient safety, reduce risk, and more effectively humanize the healthcare experience – a critical element of improving patient satisfaction and empathetic care delivery. Design and development of this new feature was a direct result of our 15 years of experience in biometric technology, listening to the needs of our customers, and delivering a practical solution that increases the power and reach of our industry-leading patient identification technology. You asked. We listened.

Have questions about the RightPatient Smart App? Drop us an email at info@rightpatient.com or visit here to request a free demo.

Patient Identification Deployment Video: Community Medical Centers

June 2, 2017/6859 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, healthcare, Infection Control, Patient Identification, Patient Matching, Patient Safety, Photo Biometrics /by John Trader

using-RightPatient-for-patient-identification-to-increase-patient-safety

Community Medical Centers implemented RightPatient using photo biometrics for patient identification to increase patient safety.

There are myriad reasons why a healthcare organization seeks to implement a biometric patient identification solution. It could be to prevent duplicate medical records. Or, perhaps to increase revenue cycle management efficiency and returns. Maybe it’s in an effort to better protect patient medical identities. Whatever the reason, there is one recurring theme that is a constant in all biometric patient ID deployments – increasing patient safety.

A desire to improve patient safety by ensuring accurate patient identification was an important underlying goal for Community Medical Centers (CMC) when they made the decision to invest in RightPatient. Staff at CMC knew that RightPatient was an important part of their overall strategy to prevent medical record mix-ups and protect patients from error.

The staff at CMC assembled a video overview of their RightPatient deployment providing insight into the enrollment process and factors that led to their implementation decision:

As explained in the video, RightPatient is an image-based patient identification solution – a non-invasive, hygienic (non-contact), and easy-to-use technology that instantly links a patient’s photo to their unique medical record. In the case of CMC and many other RightPatient customers, the software becomes a seamless module of the Epic EHR workflows through a low-level integration.

Backed by 15 years of experience in biometric technology, RightPatient remains the industry’s most versatile and scalable biometric patient safety system, leveraging a powerful cloud-based intelligence engine to recognize patients by simply capturing their photo.

Our thanks to the staff at CMC for creating this patient identification deployment overview video!

If you want more information or would like to see a demo of RightPatient, please contact us.