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As there is no effective national patient identifier present in the US healthcare system, hospitals implement different strategies to identify their patients. However, before actually getting into how hospitals identify their patients, let’s take a look at why it’s crucial in the first place. 

While patient identification might be something very normal, it is quite problematic in the US healthcare system. Many hospitals do suffer from patient identification errors, but they tend to overlook them. However, even during the pandemic, patient identification errors were prominent and led to a number of issues such as delayed care, sending test results to the wrong patient, and so on.

Some reasons for patient identification errors

First and foremost is the fact that there is no patient identifier present in the US. There’s a ban on a state-funded UPI (unique patient identifier) due to privacy concerns for around two decades. While many hospitals are struggling with patient identification issues, they come together each year and urge the officials to abolish the ban. Unfortunately, the ban is still in effect. As a result, patient identification is fragmented. 

Issues such as common names and demographic characteristics lead to patient identification errors. A single hospital can house tens of thousands of medical records, if not more. Imagine if a William Smith comes in. Since there’s no advanced way to search for the accurate medical record out of thousands of William Smiths, it will either take a lot of time or else there will be a mix-up. Moreover, the patient may state his short name, e.g., Bill, instead of William. This will inevitably lead to a mix-up.

There are duplicates present in the EHR systems. Even when a patient has an uncommon name, an EHR user might see that there are multiple records against the same person - these are duplicate medical records that have been created over time. These will lead to even more patient identification errors down the line. 

How responsible healthcare providers are identifying their patients effectively

While many caregivers are struggling with patient identification errors and are simply waiting around for the UPI, they are risking patients’ lives. Others are using different types of solutions or policies, but the responsible caregivers who put patient safety first are using RightPatient - a touchless patient identification platform. 

It uses patients’ faces to identify their medical records accurately and at any touchpoint within the hospital. RightPatient locks the medical record with the patient’s photo and biometric data during registration, ensuring that it’s only presented when the same patient comes in.

After enrollment, all the patient needs to do is look at the camera - RightPatient runs a biometric search to identify the patient and provides the correct medical record within seconds.