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How Identity Management in Healthcare Helps With the Interoperability & Patient Access Rule

July 14, 2021/7155 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Data Integrity, EHR, healthcare, Patient Data, Patient Identification, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety /by Matt Gibson

With COVID-19, telehealth, data breaches, and other challenges, healthcare providers have had their hands full. Because COVID-19 is a national health crisis, CMS pushed back compliance with its Interoperability and Patient Access rule until July 1, 2021, though it’s been effective since the start of 2021. Nevertheless, with mass vaccinations across the country, as well as hospitals slowly opening, CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) will require healthcare providers to comply from July 1. So, let’s examine a few of these requirements, the way it mandates correct information of patients, and the way proper identity management in healthcare facilities can ensure patient data integrity.

The reason CMS is gambling hugely on this rule

Like all the rules out there, the CMS Interoperability and Patient Access rule is comprehensive – the majority of it requires healthcare facilities to remove any restrictions which normally prevent patient information exchanges all across the healthcare gamut.

Under this rule, CMS plans to improve interoperability along with patient access – assisting the providers as well as patients to ensure proper healthcare outcomes.

Concerning interoperability, CMS wants the rule to aid in assisting healthcare providers to share and access patient information securely and effectively. That will assist in improving collaboration and improving healthcare outcomes as it will help make informed decisions more accurately.

On the other hand, patients, when they’ll get access to their health information, will be more involved with care decisions, increasing patient engagement.

Improving patient data access across the care continuum has several benefits such as improving healthcare outcomes, cutting costs, reducing redundant lab tests, reducing inefficiencies, and boosting collaboration among the caregivers – improving healthcare results as well. Though, all that will happen only if patient data integrity is rigorously maintained, and this requires immaculate identity management in healthcare facilities.

Healthcare providers must support e-notifications

As a segment of this rule, CMS necessitates healthcare givers (which utilize EHR systems) like critical access, acute care facilities, and psychiatric hospitals must deliver e-notifications to the patient’s other caregivers like primary care doctors, post-acute providers and suppliers, amongst other entities during ADT (admission, discharge, or transfer) events – appropriate for ED as well as inpatient admissions. This data has to consist of the patient’s basic information, the name of the sending organization, and if needed, the diagnosis of the patient.

But how does identity management in healthcare facilities play a part here?

So, patient identification in the majority of hospitals as well as health systems is yet a substantial dilemma for several causes. The outcomes can be distressing – patient misidentification can lead to making errors with medical records, mixing up patients, medical identity theft, damaging healthcare results, getting readmitted to a hospital or it could end up killing someone!

Think about it. What if an incorrect alert gets delivered to the incorrect caregiver because of a patient identification error – it would end up a disaster for everyone, if unnoticed. Not just would it impede the outcome for the patient, it would additionally compromise CMS compliance – affecting reimbursements, something that is very important for the majority of healthcare suppliers.

Whilst incorrect patient identification is quite common in the majority of healthcare facilities, reliable caregivers are utilizing RightPatient to guarantee immaculate identity management in healthcare facilities.

The Way RightPatient guarantees accurate identity management in healthcare facilities

RightPatient is the leading patient ID platform that identifies patients accurately at any touchpoint in the care continuum. By accurately identifying patient records right from registration and beyond, RightPatient prevents false alerts and ensures that the appropriate healthcare organization receives e-notifications. Since RightPatient also ensures patient data integrity by protecting patient information, it also leads to lower readmissions, boosting CMS compliance down the line. RightPatient also enhances patient safety, prevents medical errors, red-flags fraudsters in real-time – improving the bottom line in the process.

How are YOU planning to ensure CMS compliance at your healthcare facility?

Ensuring Safety in Healthcare Is Crucial as COVID-19 Cases Rise

December 19, 2020/11925 views / 1 Comment/in BLOG, COVID-19, healthcare, Patient Errors, Patient Experience, Patient Identification, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety /by Matt Gibson

What a year this has been! While it’s almost the end of the unforgettable year of 2020, the effects of COVID-19 will be felt for many years to come, unfortunately. 2020 will be globally remembered as one of the worst years in recent times due to the pandemic and how it kept pushing everyone to their limits. Arguably, it hit the US healthcare system the worst – just take a look at the mindboggling statistics. COVID-19 has infected more than 15 million Americans while claiming just over 288,000 lives. That’s not all – cases are increasing rapidly every day, with healthcare providers being overwhelmed by the surge of COVID-19 patients. With all that’s going on, safety in healthcare providers’ facilities as well as accommodating patients is more important than ever.

Let’s take a look at some of the recent moves taken in response to the pandemic, how they can improve healthcare outcomes and prevent hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), and how an effective patient identity management platform can help.

Recent moves to tackle COVID-19 challenges

Patients are being redirected to other facilities due to capacity limitations

Lifespan Health System of Providence, Rhode Island, is redirecting COVID-19 patients to a field hospital located at Rhode Island Convention Center, as the former reached its capacity and has no beds to spare. While it still has its ICU and ventilators available, its regular beds are full due to COVID-19 patients. Moreover, the field hospital, with a capacity for 600 patients, is accepting non-critical patients as well.

A similar case had occurred in Arizona’s Holy Cross Hospital. Instead of admitting the patient at a neighboring facility, the ambulance crew took the patient to the Nogales International Airport before transferring him to a different location (Flagstaff) due to capacity constraints.

COVID-19 surge forces Mayo Clinic to temporarily close clinics

The Mayo Clinic Health System closed one of its clinics temporarily and will do the same with its four other clinics. The affected clinics are its Mankato-Northridge, Belle Plaine, Le Sueur, Janesville, and Waterville clinics. The health system is doing so to reallocate its resources and prioritize critical care due to the COVID-19 surge. However, patients may still visit its other sites or use the online services they provide, such as virtual sessions, nurse line, etc.

A pediatric acute care hospital will accept adult cases

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center will be accepting adults under 30, whenever possible, in order to help ease the pressure of COVID-19 on other hospitals. Many local healthcare providers that serve adult patients are almost nearing their capacities due to the overwhelming number of patients, which is why Cincinnati Children’s has made such a welcome decision.

The existing practices aren’t enough to ensure safety in healthcare facilities

All of the healthcare providers have one priority right now – to ensure safety within their facilities. However, COVID-19 has been creating havoc in healthcare facilities for months now, leading to many of them shutting down, health systems suspending some of its facilities temporarily, or resorting to cost-cutting measures.

While a few might be benefitting from such measures, healthcare as a whole is suffering. Hospitals need to seek out ways to enhance patient safety, reduce HAIs, reduce response times, and improve patient outcomes to ensure survival during and after COVID-19. Thankfully, RightPatient can help.

RightPatient enhances safety in healthcare facilities

RightPatient is a touchless biometric patient identification platform that is extremely beneficial for healthcare providers, especially during the pandemic. Since it is touchless, it doesn’t have any infection control liabilities associated with it, leading to reduced hospital-acquired infections and improving safety in healthcare for everyone involved. Moreover, it maintains patient data integrity by associating correct medical records with the appropriate patients every time – it locks the medical records of the patients with their photos. Also, it is versatile enough to be used at any touchpoint in a healthcare facility, making it ideal for telehealth sessions.

After scheduling appointments, patients receive an SMS or email for verifying their identities. Patients are required to provide a selfie and a photo of their driver’s license or any other form of identification. RightPatient automatically compares the photos for a match, remotely authenticating patients. Biometric credentials are provided to the new patients. This helps ensure that the accurate patient is identified right from appointment scheduling.

At healthcare facilities, patients only need to look at the camera – the platform compares the photos for a match and provides accurate medical records within seconds, making it the most hygienic and feasible choice for patient identification.

RightPatient improves safety in healthcare facilities not only by identifying patients accurately and ensuring patient data protection but by also reducing HAIs, something that is paramount right now.

Be a responsible healthcare provider and use RightPatient now to improve healthcare outcomes, enhance patient safety, and protect patients.

Hospital Readmission Prevention is a Must as CMS Fines Half of Hospitals

November 13, 2020/10897 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, healthcare, Patient Data, Patient Errors, Patient Identification, Patient Matching, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety, value-based care /by Matt Gibson

The US healthcare system is in an unfortunate state – it just can’t seem to catch a break. While it was already coping with a number of issues – such as medical identity theft, the lack of price transparency, interoperability issues, and healthcare data breaches, among others – COVID-19 hit it hard. As a result, healthcare providers across the US are facing huge losses. With increasing COVID-19 cases across the States and with experts predicting even more during the fall, healthcare providers received yet another blow. CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) will fine about half of hospitals due to readmissions of Medicare patients, although this is for the pre-pandemic period and therefore COVID-19 cannot be held accountable for the lower payments. Let’s take a look at the numbers, how this will affect the hospitals further, and how hospital readmission prevention can be achieved with a proper patient identity verification platform.

CMS will lower payments

While it’s already been quite a harsh year for healthcare providers, it’s about to get worse. Many caregivers are resorting to cost-cutting strategies by laying off employees, furloughing them, or even shutting down; however, the lowered payments will only add to the unprecedented costs.

Some numbers surrounding the penalties

During the fiscal year 2021, CMS will fine 2,545 hospitals due to increased Medicare patient readmissions that occurred within 30 days. The penalties were based on patient data ranging from July 2016 through June 2019. A staggering 83% of the hospitals received penalties, and they will be facing payment cuts as high as 3% per Medicare case during 2021. 39 caregivers will face the maximum penalty next year, which is an improvement over this year, when the number of hospitals hit with the maximum penalty was 56. However, with the pandemic disrupting everything, hospitals will lose more than ever. As a result, hospital readmission prevention becomes a topmost priority.

Why is the program important?

This is the ninth year of the Hospital Readmissions Reductions Program, and it has been created to improve patient care quality while lowering overall costs. As previously mentioned, it takes into account the readmissions of Medicare patients that occur within 30 days. While CMS is considering a suspension of the penalty program due to COVID-19, the penalties are still in effect this year.

Some exceptions

Congress has exempted 2,176 hospitals out of the 5,267 from penalties due to a number of reasons. The hospitals exempted are either:

Critical access hospitals,
The only inpatient facility in the area,
Hospitals specializing in long-term care, children, veterans, or psychiatric patients.

What the industry thinks about hospital readmission prevention

While many participants within the US healthcare system have voiced disapproval regarding the penalty program, others have said that, while not perfect, the Hospital Readmissions Reductions Program is useful – it pushes caregivers to find innovative solutions to provide better quality care.

The penalties will further increase hospital losses

Moreover, as healthcare providers are already facing huge losses due to the pandemic, they need to ensure hospital readmission prevention if they want to survive in the long run. Several hospitals are heavily relying on CMS reimbursements, and if they can reduce readmissions, it might help them survive the pandemic’s financial strain. By improving patient safety and quality of care, hospitals can significantly lower readmissions. Fortunately, RightPatient can help with that.

RightPatient enhances hospital readmission prevention

RightPatient has been helping leading healthcare providers with its touchless patient identification platform for years. It ensures improved healthcare outcomes by eliminating one of the most overlooked problems within hospitals: patient misidentification.

Patient misidentification leads to duplicate medical records and overlays, jeopardizing patient safety. Moreover, it provides the wrong medical records to caregivers, resulting in negative healthcare outcomes. Naturally, these are the patients who are readmitted within hospitals frequently. So, how does RightPatient help?

It locks the medical records of the patients using their photos during registration. Patients receive an SMS/email after they schedule appointments, and they are required to provide a personal photo and a photo of their driver’s license. RightPatient compares the photos for a proper match, eliminating any chance of misidentifications. All of this is done without requiring the patients to touch any foreign objects, eliminating infection control issues – something that is crucial during and after the pandemic.

Reduce patient readmissions, improve healthcare outcomes, and ensure patient safety with RightPatient – contact us now to learn how we can help you.

Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Can be Achieved with Positive Patient Identification

October 21, 2020/10288 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Data Integrity, Duplicate Medical Records, healthcare, Infection Control, Patient Data, Patient Identification, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety /by Matt Gibson

Among the several issues faced by the US healthcare system, one of the more prominent is patient misidentification. We know this to be true because even during the coronavirus pandemic, experts have stated that patient matching issues were continuing. Moreover, coalitions were formed to demand the fabled “unique patient identifier” once again. But why do healthcare providers demand patient identifiers time and again? Let’s take a look at some statistics that show how serious the issue is, some consequences caused by the absence of effective patient identification, and how patient safety and quality improvement are related to it.

Patient identification issues are nothing new

The last decade has been a transition towards technology for the US healthcare system. Caregivers such as physician practices, hospitals, and health systems have made the jump from traditional paper medical records towards the more standard electronic health records (EHRs). However, as they did so, they saw the issues that occurred due to the absence of an effective patient identifier nationwide. One of the biggest challenges is matching patients to their accurate medical record whenever they arrive for healthcare services. Let’s review some recent statistics about how common misidentifications are.

Some stats to back it up

According to a study conducted by eHealth Initiative, approximately 38% of the respondents have suffered from an unwanted event caused by patient misidentification within the last 2 years. Many of these events are caused by duplicate medical records, and an overwhelming 66% of the respondents blame data entry errors that lead to duplicates. Moreover, 80% of the providers have dedicated FTEs (full-time employees) or third-party contractors to solve these issues. The biggest barriers to reducing poor patient matching were the lack of prioritization and the lack of technology. 32% of the caregivers stated that they had around 3-10% duplicates within their EHR systems. All of these statistics show that patient misidentification is growing and needs to be addressed by caregivers. Fortunately, many hospitals and health systems are already using touchless patient identification platforms like RightPatient to solve these issues, but more on that later. Let’s see how patient misidentification is a barrier to patient safety and quality improvement.

Patient misidentification hampers patient safety and quality improvement

While patient misidentification causes a lot of problems for any given caregiver and patient, let’s take a look at how it impacts patient safety, and in turn, healthcare quality.

Patient misidentification is closely related to duplicate medical records

Duplicates can lead to patient misidentification and vice versa. For instance, if a patient comes in and provides their nickname instead of the name on the medical record, the registrar won’t be able to accurately identify the medical record. Thus, after failing to find the record, a new one gets created, leading to another duplicate record within the EHR system.

Likewise, if there are many duplicates within the system against the same patient, there are high chances that all of them have incomplete and inconsistent information. This will lead to matching the patient to the improper medical record. Both of these scenarios will lead to incorrect procedures, adversely impacting patient safety.

Patient misidentification hampers patient data integrity

As previously stated, data entry errors are quite common during registration. Thus, if patients are associated with the wrong medical record, they will be treated based on someone else’s medical history, illnesses, allergies, and so on. One single pill can severely impact the patient’s health – one can imagine what would happen if the whole procedure was wrong! Such cases have led to delayed care, repeated lab tests, and compromised patient safety.

Patient misidentification leads to medical errors

Quite closely tied with the previous point, patient safety and quality improvement cannot be achieved if medical errors keep occurring. While medical errors happen for a variety of reasons, many are preventable, and as stated previously, 38% of the healthcare providers surveyed reported that they suffered from medical errors tied to patient misidentification. These errors could have easily been prevented had the caregivers used robust patient identity matching solutions.

Patient safety and quality improvement is achievable with RightPatient

Leading healthcare providers such as Catholic Health Services of Long Island, Terrebonne General Medical Center, Community Medical Centers, among others, have been using RightPatient and improving patient safety and quality of care. As the healthcare industry’s leading touchless patient identification platform, RightPatient has years of experience helping hospitals and health systems identify patients’ accurate medical records across the continuum of care. The platform uses patients’ photos to identify their accurate medical records, prevent medical identity theft, avoid duplicate records, and prevent medical errors – enhancing patient safety and ensuring a hygienic environment that will be crucial in a post-pandemic world.

Patient Matching and Interoperability Are Ineffective Without Positive Patient Identification

October 19, 2020/9483 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Duplicate Medical Records, EHR, healthcare, Medical Record Mix-ups, Patient Data, Patient Identification, Patient Matching, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety /by Matt Gibson

The U.S. healthcare system has been inundated with several issues even before the pandemic. The lack of price transparency, medical identity theft, duplicate medical records, high costs, medical errors, and patient safety issues are just some of the issues plaguing providers. However, today’s focus is on another problem – the lack of interoperability. Many providers are thinking that interoperability will get a significant boost due to changes such as the 21st Century Cures Act and the CMS Interoperability and Patient Access Final Rule. While that might be true, many are overlooking the fact that it needs a particular component to work immaculately – patient matching. While some might believe that it is just a cog in the wheel, everything in healthcare heavily relies on accurate patient identification – without it, everything will go wrong.

Let’s take a closer look at the rules, how they will boost interoperability, and why patient identification is crucial for interoperability to work.

The 21st Century Cures Act and Patient Matching

What it means

Several healthcare experts are quite content with the Cures Act, believing that it will usher in the era of true interoperability. In a nutshell, the implementation of certain provisions within the act will enhance interoperability and also support accessing, exchanging, and using electronic health information. What all this means is that patient data can be easily shared among caregivers, leading to better, more personalized care, as well as enhanced healthcare outcomes – but that’s only one side of the coin.

Interoperability requires more than the Cures Act

While the Act is a step in the right direction, interoperability won’t be successful solely because of it – other factors need to be considered. The most important factor is patient matching.

Imagine a scenario where a healthcare provider is abiding with the Act and has taken all the necessary measures to do so. However, due to issues like patient misidentification or duplicate medical records, matching patients to their proper EHRs will become nearly impossible. As a result, the wrong medical record will be sent to the wrong caregiver – jeopardizing patient safety and adversely affecting coordinated care efforts along the way. Thus, proper patient matching is an absolute must to make sure that the patient data exchanges are successful and error-free. Healthcare providers can do so by ensuring accurate patient identification across the care continuum by using solutions like RightPatient – more on that later.

The Interoperability & Patient Access Final Rule

We’ve already talked at length about this rule and how it will enhance interoperability as well. In a nutshell, healthcare providers using EHR or EMR systems need to enable e-notifications support so that they can receive and send out real-time notifications during ADT (admission, discharge, and transfer) events with the patients’ other caregivers. While this rule has been established to boost interoperability and coordinated care efforts, this also requires proper patient matching. If a patient is misidentified, the caregiver will send out false alerts, jeopardizing the care coordination efforts. It will also put the provider’s CMS reimbursements at risk.

Thus, patient identity matching must be accurate at all times, if the providers want to ensure CMS compliance and abide by the 21st Century Cures Act. This is where RightPatient can help caregivers ensure accurate patient identification – and more.

RightPatient can improve patient matching

RightPatient has years of experience with reputed healthcare providers such as Terrebonne General Medical Center, Community Medical Centers, and University Medical Center. It is a touchless patient identification platform that identifies patients with the element that cannot be copied or stolen – their face. Right from appointment scheduling, the platform ensures remote patient authentication – patients are asked for a selfie and a photo of their driver’s license. RightPatient matches the photos and ensures that patients are identified accurately – ensuring positive patient identification.

3 Patient Safety Measures Hospitals Must Take in a Post-Pandemic World

October 14, 2020/10702 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Data Integrity, Duplicate Medical Records, healthcare, Medical Identity Theft, Patient Data, Patient Errors, Patient Identification, Patient Matching, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety /by Matt Gibson

COVID-19 has changed reality for us – it has changed the way we lead our lives. Sanitizers, masks, and social distancing have become quite integral parts of our daily lives now. Wherever we go, social distancing practices are encouraged for a safer environment. However, it has shaken the healthcare systems of the world to their core, especially that of the U.S. With the highest number of cases in the world (as of now), hospitals are slowly opening their doors for regular patients. Keeping that in mind, hospitals must take patient safety measures while they are opening to ensure that patients receive care in a safe and hygienic environment. Let’s take a look at some common steps hospitals can take to prevent patient safety issues.

Some insightful statistics

According to a survey by Sage Growth Partners, 24% of the respondents (healthcare professionals) believe that issues such as disparate EHRs and lack of actionable data at the point of care lead to patient safety issues.

Improving patient safety is also among the top three priorities of the respondents, besides delivering high-quality care and increasing efficiency and reducing costs – all of which can be done by ensuring accurate patient identification (more on that later).

Let’s explore what kind of patient safety measures will help hospitals enhance patient care.

Patient safety measures that can help enhance patient care

Planning everything well in advance

While many might think that everything is slowly returning to normal, it’s quite the opposite. Working from home is still being utilized by most organizations, social distancing is still being practiced, and wearing masks and sanitizing regularly are still highly encouraged.

Since hospitals are opening slowly, they should plan every step carefully along with contingencies while keeping worst-case scenarios in mind. Hospitals need to plan the opening days and rather than opening the whole facility at once, they should open in phases. This will help reduce the risk of any mass outbreaks of COVID-19 – managing a mass outbreak at a single location will be much easier than managing outbreaks at all the facilities.

Also, hospitals should decide at what capacity will they operate and the duration for that testing phase. If all goes well, they can slowly increase the capacity of patients they will be serving.

Finally, the inventory required for all of the above needs to be planned to ensure that the necessary materials are available at all times. For instance, PPE has become quite critical, and these should be ordered well in advance before the stock runs out within the facilities. Thus, instead of reordering the materials when they’re at 30%, they should be reordered at, say, 45% – these are essential materials, after all.

Enforce safety measures for everyone

It goes without saying that every individual must practice a minimum level of social distancing to help themselves and others stay safe from the novel coronavirus. Sadly, not everyone follows that. Thus, the hospitals must enforce that everyone within the facility must follow the social distancing rules to a T. Not only is this one of the most common patient safety measures, but it also enhances safety for the physicians, nurses, and every other healthcare staff.

Keep brightly colored posters in places where they will catch everyone’s attention. Place stickers on the floor with six feet between them to show where patients or caregivers must stand, especially in busy places like registration desks. Make sure that everyone is wearing masks and that sanitizers are available everywhere. Keeping the facilities hygienic is crucial to enhance patient safety.

Ensure accurate patient data

One of the most crucial factors that make or break patient safety is patient data, as the former is heavily reliant on the accuracy of patient data. Imagine this, if the patient is treated based on inaccurate patient data, they will face delayed or incorrect medications, leading to poor healthcare outcomes. One of the most common ways patient data gets corrupted is via duplicate records.

If a patient has multiple records, there are high chances that the registrar will select the one with inconsistent or fragmented data, leading to adverse outcomes. Thus, ensuring that patient data integrity is maintained at all times is crucial for improving patient safety. Fortunately, RightPatient does all that – and more.

RightPatient is the leading patient identification platform used by healthcare providers like Terrebonne General Medical Center, Grady Health, and Catholic Health of Long Island. With a robust photo-based engine, it ensures that the patients are identified accurately at all times across the care continuum, helping patient data integrity by avoiding duplicate medical records. Moreover, it ensures that the patients are who they say they are and not impostors, preventing medical identity theft in real-time.

Finally, a platform like RightPatient is critical in a post-pandemic world because it is entirely touchless. Thus, it helps caregivers and patients operate in a hygienic environment by preventing infection control issues.

Use RightPatient now and enhance patient safety at your facilities, prevent medical identity theft, and prevent duplicate medical records – enhancing patient data integrity along the way.

CMS Interoperability and Patient Access Final Rule Requires a Robust Patient Identification Software

October 6, 2020/10444 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Connected Health, Data Integrity, EHR, healthcare, Medical Record Mix-ups, Patient Errors, Patient Experience, Patient Identification, Patient Matching, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety /by Matt Gibson

This has been quite a year for the U.S. healthcare system – nobody could’ve predicted all the series of events. While the novel coronavirus is still raging on, telehealth is experiencing unprecedented growth. On the other hand, hospitals are facing immense financial strain due to the pandemic’s consequences such as the cancellation of elective procedures and lower inpatient visits. However, despite all the recent developments healthcare providers need to work on something else as well – supporting e-notifications. CMS has made some additional changes to the Medicare Conditions of Participation (CoPs), and while providers will be busy brainstorming about how to best approach the requirements, many will overlook one critical factor that will either make or break their e-notifications – patient identification. Let’s take a look at what the rule specifically says about e-notifications, who is eligible, how it helps caregivers, and how a robust patient identification software like RightPatient is a must for ensuring proper e-notifications.

The Interoperability and Patient Access Final Rule – in a Nutshell

While the rule itself is quite vast and detailed, we’ll cover the e-notifications part briefly. The basic meaning of the rule is clear from its name. For years, the U.S. healthcare system has been suffering from the lack of proper interoperability for a number of issues – patient misidentification being a major reason. However, with the “companion final rule”, as per CMS, things are about to change for the better, as it will introduce a certain level of interoperability that will ultimately boost coordinated healthcare efforts.

The “companion final rule” states that healthcare providers such as critical access providers, acute care, or psychiatric hospitals must send out real-time e-notifications during ADT (admission, discharge, or transfer) events to a patient’s caregivers such as established primary care practitioners, post-acute providers & suppliers, primary care practice groups & entities, as well as any other practitioners, groups, or entities primarily responsible for the patient’s care. The information sent must contain the patient’s name, the treating practitioner’s name, and the sending institution’s name, at the very least. Finally, these are applicable during inpatient ADT events and ED admissions or discharges.

Any caregiver that uses digital medical records such as EHRs or EMRs must support e-notifications by May 1, 2021, to ensure CMS compliance.

With that out of the way, let’s look at how the rule requires accurate patient identification and how a robust patient identification software is critical for its success.

Why patient identification will make or break your CMS compliance

Healthcare providers are already busy working on e-notifications support, and while there are a lot of great solutions out there, providers shouldn’t forget the foundation upon which e-notifications depend on – proper patient identification.

The Interoperability and Patient Access Final Rule requires hospitals to identify their patients accurately across the care continuum, especially if they want to send out e-notifications to the proper caregivers. Sadly, patient identification has always been problematic – it is an overlooked but significant concern for the U.S. healthcare system. One might ask how are patient identification and e-notifications related – let’s learn more.

Imagine this – a hospital already has patient misidentification cases because they don’t use an effective patient identification software. If a patient comes in and is misidentified, not only will the treatment be affected, but the hospital will be sending out false alerts to the wrong caregivers. This will wreak havoc for all the caregivers involved with the patient.

If such cases become common, then the patients, as well as the care coordination teams, will start questioning the credibility of the caregiver sending out false alerts. As a result, the hospital will lose goodwill and risk its CMS reimbursements. After COVID-19, not a single hospital can afford to make such mistakes – the pandemic has already caused the worst financial strain on hospitals and health systems in recent times. Thus, patient identification is a crucial component for the e-notifications to work. If caregivers don’t have a robust patient identity matching system in place, they need to upgrade it before the e-notifications support deadline.

RightPatient is the most robust patient identification software

RightPatient has been accurately identifying patients for years. With its touchless patient identification platform, RightPatient ensures that patients are identified accurately and safely right from the start.

After a patient schedules an appointment, they are sent an SMS or email and are required to provide a selfie and a photo of their driver’s license. The platform automatically matches the photos and remotely ensures patient identification. If it’s a new patient, the platform will automatically assign new biometric credentials for them.

During hospital visits, patients only need to look at the camera – RightPatient matches the saved photo with the photo taken by the camera – ensuring accurate patient identification. Best of all, it’s an entirely touchless process, something that is mandatory in a post-pandemic world.

RightPatient is the leading patient identification software in the healthcare industry and is used by prominent caregivers such as Terrebonne General Medical Center, Community Medical Centers, and Catholic Health Services of Long Island. Be a responsible healthcare provider and upgrade your patient identification system now to prevent misidentification cases, medical identity theft, and ensure compliance with the Interoperability and Patient Access Final Rule.

How Many Patient Identifiers Should be Used to Ensure Patient Safety?

September 17, 2020/8209 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Data Integrity, Duplicate Medical Records, EHR, healthcare, Patient Identification, Patient Matching, Patient Outcomes /by Matt Gibson

The US healthcare system has always been plagued by a number of issues. One very common but often overlooked issue is that of patient identification errors. Misidentification cases continue to be quite prevalent while there continues to be a ban on the creation of a state-funded Universal Patient Identifier (UPI). While debate continues around the risks and rewards involved with a UPI, one should also be asking about its efficacy. How many patient identifiers should be used to prevent patient safety issues? Will a UPI be enough to solve this colossal challenge?

UPI’s history in a nutshell

Since the idea for a unique patient identifier was formed, it’s seen constant criticism and opposition, resulting in a ban that’s lasted for around two decades. Last year, healthcare organizations came pretty close to finally having the ban removed when the US House of Representatives voted to repeal the ban. However, the ban is still in effect with the legislation failing to gain approval in the Senate.

As for the future of the UPI, let’s look at its past. It has not been funded for around two decades due to issues like privacy concerns and growing data breach incidents that could seriously jeopardize patient safety and privacy. Thus, chances are high that the future may not be kind to the creation of a state-funded UPI.

Lack of effective patient identification is felt throughout healthcare

The absence of reliable patient identification is widely felt throughout hospitals and health systems. Patient safety issues and patient data integrity failures are just some of the many issues associated with patient misidentification. However, a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic clearly highlighted the importance of proper patient identification, impeding the ability of caregivers to provide healthcare services quickly and effectively without access to holistic patient information. Since the pandemic started, healthcare staff on the frontlines have been learning that the hard way.

Many experts are even thinking that this might be the time the UPI will finally be realized. But will it be enough? How many patient identifiers should be used to make sure it’s safe for patients and effective for providers? Fortunately, our Co-Founder, Michael Trader, has a comprehensive answer.

How many patient identifiers should be used?

Mr. Trader has stated that it’s crucial to find balance regarding a UPI and it’s equally important to establish an infrastructure that can house the UPI securely – only identifying patients accurately is not enough. Furthermore, the creation of duplicate medical records and overlays need to be prevented – they are some of the many issues that significantly hinder patient matching.

Mr. Trader adds that while the UPI will have benefits such as better interoperability as providers can share patient data more reliably, it will not mitigate issues such as duplicates, overlays, and medical identity theft. How many patient identifiers should be used, then?

Mr. Trader stated that instead of relying solely on the UPI, responsible providers will pair it with another identification system, and preferably one that is tried and tested. Linking the UPI to a photo-based biometric patient identification platform comes to mind. This touchless solution can be scaled across all encounter touch points, even enabling patients to utilize their own smartphones, making it the ideal solution in our post-pandemic world. With such a combination, patient misidentifications can be eliminated.

For years, patient misidentification has been a persistent problem for patients and caregivers alike. Providers need to eliminate misidentification as soon as possible, with or without the UPI. After all, it’s a single mistake that can cause severe consequences for both providers and patients. Fortunately, RightPatient can help providers avoid such unwanted cases.

With its photo-based patient identification platform, RightPatient has been identifying patients accurately for years. Leading and responsible providers have chosen RightPatient instead of waiting for the UPI – they know the effects of patient identification errors better than anyone else. Thus, if the UPI is created, responsible leaders will be coupling it with the leading patient identification platform, ensuring interoperability, accurate patient identification, and reliable patient data exchanges.

Dirty Patient Data Can Have Severe Consequences for Healthcare Providers

September 9, 2020/13201 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Connected Health, Data Integrity, Duplicate Medical Records, EHR, Facial Reciognition, healthcare, Medical Identity Theft, Patient Data, Patient Identification, Patient Matching, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety /by Matt Gibson

The US healthcare system has always been facing problems that stopped it from realizing its full potential. These issues are longstanding barriers to providing immaculate healthcare services to patients, and thus affect healthcare outcomes for all involved. One of these issues has been the “dirty” patient data accumulating within EHR systems over the years. With the COVID-19 pandemic causing even more issues like the unprecedented financial strain, layoffs, restructuring and so on, providers need to ensure that the patient information within their facilities is accurate, consistent and relevant. Let’s look at what unclean patient data is, how it affects patients and providers and how RightPatient can ensure the cleanest patient data with accurate patient identification.

Patient data

A brief definition

In the simplest terms, patient data refers to a single patient’s medical information – medications, medical history, vitals, illnesses and so on. Such data is critical in making informed decisions regarding the patient in question. What should be the current or future course of action and how to best handle the needs of the patient are some common examples.

From the explanation, it is clear why clean patient data is important for both caregivers and their recipients. Let’s look at the other side of the coin: dirty data.

“Dirty” patient information

By now, it should be quite clear what dirty data means. Whenever the data is inaccurate, incomplete, inconsistent, obsolete or corrupt, it is considered “dirty”. Unclean patient data can lead to a lot of problems for any given healthcare provider. It impacts everyday operations, makes effective data sharing difficult and impacts healthcare outcomes, among other issues. Let’s have a more detailed look at the common ones.

Effects of unclean patient data

Inaccuracy and inefficient operations

Imagine if a patient goes to their healthcare provider for a checkup. The registrar types in the patient’s name: several medical records pop up on the screen, all pertaining to the same patient. Understandably, this can confuse the registrar. They are faced with a difficult choice: either go through all the patient records and find out the accurate one or create a new one entirely. The former case will take up a lot of time, while the latter will just create another duplicate medical record within the system. Both of these are consequences of having unclean data within the system.

Huge losses

According to Gartner, unclean data can cost an organization anywhere from $9.7 to $14.2 million. For US healthcare providers, however, it’s an entirely different figure. AHIMA stated that duplicate medical records can cost up to $40 million for any given provider, while a health system having several facilities can house up to 20% duplicate records.

Imagine if a patient is treated with another patient’s medical information. When the record holder gets the bill for services they did not use, they’ll simply contact their insurance provider regarding the matter. This will lead to a denied claim. Thus, inaccurate data can lead to denied claims as well – costing around $4.9 million on average for the average health system.

Patient safety is compromised

One of the biggest issues of unclean data is that it impacts patient safety. One patient will receive inaccurate and even dangerous treatment because they are being treated based on an entirely different patient’s medical record. Even if it is the same patient, if there are multiple records under their name, each record will have inconsistent and incomplete information about the patient, leading to improper care, medications and procedures. All in all, healthcare outcomes will not be as expected as patient safety and quality of care is jeopardized severely. This can affect a provider’s ratings as well. Patients will not be happy if they are not receiving unreliable healthcare services. Thus, clean data is critical to improving quality and safety in healthcare.

Non-compliance issues

This one is quite new. However, most healthcare providers know this and are working on it: e-notifications support.

The CMS rule mandates that all caregivers having EHR systems must ensure they support e-notifications by May 1st, 2021. During any ADT event, the provider needs to send e-notifications to the patient’s caregivers, whether they be established primary care practitioners, post-acute providers & suppliers or any other entity primarily responsible for the patient’s care. This is done to boost positive healthcare outcomes and improve care coordination. If the data is unclean, providers will end up sending false alerts either to the wrong provider or the wrong patient.

In any case, unclean data will cause non-compliance issues, penalties and might even jeopardize CMS provider agreements.

Lower ROI

Health systems and hospitals have been investing significantly in population health management, big data, analytics and similar projects they find promising. The efficacy of these systems depends on high-quality data being fed into them. When data is corrupted due to duplicate and overlay records, those investments are diluted, leading to lower ROI.

Keep patient data clean with RightPatient

One of the best ways to ensure that patient data integrity is maintained is by identifying the accurate patient record from the get-go. That’s where we can help.

RightPatient is the leading patient identification platform that ensures data integrity is maintained within EHRs. It is a touchless, photo-based platform used by leading healthcare providers.

By making sure that you identify your patients accurately every time, you can avoid duplicate medical records, prevent medical identity theft, eliminate financial issues related to dirty data, improve patient safety and quality of care. Also, you can send out proper e-notifications to the accurate caregivers, eliminating any non-compliance penalties.

By ensuring accurate and consistent data that can be used by the aforementioned investments (population health management, big data, analytics, etc.), RightPatient improves ROI for healthcare providers, creating a win-win scenario for everyone.

Contact us now to know how RightPatient works and how we can help you ensure the cleanest data via positive patient identification.

Patient Identification Policy Impacts Data Integrity and Patient Safety Issues

August 10, 2020/8791 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Data Integrity, Duplicate Medical Records, EHR, healthcare, Medical Identity Theft, Patient Errors, Patient Identification, Patient Matching, Patient Safety /by Matt Gibson

Let’s face it – patient identification errors are nothing new and it is a much-discussed topic among healthcare leaders. For instance, just a month ago, a new coalition was formed to urge Congress to develop a UPI (unique patient identifier) to be used nationwide. Sadly, such formations are quite common – groups, competitions, and alliances have formed for years for the same reason. The result is that no UPI exists yet and patient identification errors are still wreaking havoc. However, many healthcare providers are reaping the benefits of accurate patient identification – it boils down to the patient identification policy used by the caregiver. Let’s take a closer look at how patient identification errors can cause a multitude of problems, why accurate patient identification is so crucial, and how platforms like RightPatient can help ensure just that.

Patient misidentification

It is quite self-explanatory. Patient identification errors occur whenever a healthcare facility fails to accurately match the patient with their appropriate medical record present within the EHR system.

It happens for a number of reasons. As already mentioned, it is nothing new and has been the result of years of human errors and improper patient data maintenance like duplicate medical records, overlays, and missing, incorrect, and/or incomplete information, leading to low patient match rates.

To put it into perspective, AHIMA stated that health systems can house up to 20% duplicate records within their EHR systems. The financial impact? It can go as high as $40 million for any given healthcare facility.

Effects of patient misidentification

Low patient match rates is just the tip of the iceberg! Patient misidentification leads to several problems. Let’s look at the more prominent effects of patient misidentification.

Whenever you incorrectly identify a patient, it means that one patient’s data will get written into someone else’s medical record – creating patient data integrity issues. This leads to a lot of problems – incorrect medications, repeated lab tests, incorrect medical procedures, inaccurate patient history – the list just goes on. Both the patients will receive inaccurate care by the caregiver as a direct consequence of patient misidentification, hampering patient outcomes.

Naturally, patient misidentification leads to patient safety issues – these are bound to happen if your treatment is based on the wrong medical record. Consequences can be delays in treatment, worse patient outcomes, irreparable damages, and sometimes, patient misidentification can even result in deaths. According to a report by John Hopkins University, medical errors can cause up to 250,000 avoidable deaths per year, many of which happen due to patient identification errors.

Thus, the million-dollar question is how can healthcare providers ensure accurate patient identification across their facilities?

It depends on a provider’s patient identification system

The accuracy of patient identification is as good as the patient identification policy used by the hospital in question, and there are many options hospitals can choose from. Responsible leaders, in any case, must choose the patient identification system that ensures accurate patient identification, provides a seamless experience, and provides a safe and hygienic environment for all involved.

There are a plethora of options available that hospitals can use as their primary patient identification policy. Sadly, many are still choosing the most obsolete one – inundating patients with questions. Whenever a patient arrives, officials ask them questions to find the correct medical record. This policy is slow, outdated, and extremely insecure – anyone can pass themselves off as the patient. In fact, this leads to medical identity theft – fraudsters buy stolen medical records from the black market and have all the information to pose successfully as the victim.

One other policy is to use patient ID wristbands. While this is a tad more secure than asking questions, it can still be taken off a patient and used for fraudulent purposes. Moreover, it is a contact-based solution, and that’s not something hospitals would want after the COVID-19 crisis – everyone is extremely aware of infection control issues now.

The most secure solution is using an identification policy where the identifier cannot be transferred or stolen – biometric modalities come to mind. There is a caveat though – patients would be quite reluctant to accept touch-based solutions such as fingerprint or palm-vein scanning.

Implement a touchless patient identification policy

The best option has been left for last – touchless patient identification platforms. RightPatient is the leading photo-based biometric patient identification system used by progressive healthcare providers.

Locking the medical records of patients with their photos upon registration, returning patients only need to look at the camera and the platform matches the photo with the one saved alongside their medical record, ensuring accurate patient identity verification.

There are many patient identification platforms available – be the responsible leader by choosing the one that shares the common goal of improving patient safety and quality of care at your facility.