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Leaders of healthcare gather in Chicago for Becker’s Hospital Review Conference

September 29, 2017/5931 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Events/Conferences, healthcare, Patient Identification, Patient Safety /by Mizan Rahman

Just as the cooler weather finally emerges in hot & sunny Silicon Valley, I was summoned to attend the Becker’s Health IT and Revenue Cycle Conference in the windy city of Chicago. Downtown Chicago is definitely one of the most beautiful destinations – I was excited. Mike (the co-founder) found a great apartment with the Airbnb app – a high-rise tower right next to the Whole Foods market and within walking distance to the venue for this year’s conference. I arrived a bit late that evening and most restaurants were closed by the time I was ready for some self-indulgence. So, I reluctantly grabbed some salad at a nearby sports bar and decided to enjoy the mesmerizing Chicago skyline as I walked back home – a great start.

Our booth setup was nice, although we wondered why some smaller sponsors got a better booth space than we did. We were shoved in the middle of many random companies when a bronze sponsor (and a “competitor”) was enjoying one of the most amazing locations – the benefits of the “circle of friendship,” I guess!

After learning a bit about how RightPatient prevents duplicate medical records and eliminates chart corrections in different EHR systems (just one of our many benefits), Walter R. Houlihan, the Senior Director of Health Information Management at Baystate Health spontaneously uttered, “yeah, I see the duplicates and record mix-ups all the time. My team is the one that fixes them.” Baystate Health needs our biometric patient ID product – please buy it!

Bob LaFollette, COO and Senior Administrator of Urology from OSU

Another visitor, Bob LaFollette, COO and Senior Administrator of Urology from OSU was a charming and interesting individual. His first question to us was, “Guess what OSU stands for?” Between guesses of Oregon State University, Oklahoma State University and so on, we were corrected with the right answer – Ohio State University. He got a kick out of it! Besides the fun and warm conversations, Bob was absolutely ecstatic with hearing how RightPatient helps with patient safety and how we automatically add patient photos into medical records. If Bob was the decision maker, I bet it would have been awesome for us.

Towards the end of the second day, I made an effort to go around and meet other companies. I have never seen so many Revenue Cycle companies all in one place – looks like money collection is the game in healthcare! There was even a company that helps to collect & recover money from international patients! I couldn’t even begin to imagine what tactics and strategies they follow in certain countries but it can’t be anything better than tactics used by the bounty hunter. Another interesting company was called Zero Gravity. Their feature product on display was an LED-based anti-aging facial rejuvenation system. People had lined up for a free session – why not? It’s free.

There were some awesome presentations, discussion, and workshops – I only attended one session by Ms. Murphy of the University of Chicago School of Medicine. It was amazing and I will write a separate post all about it. It was also great seeing the CrossChx team – once rivals, now we work together very closely. They focus on their Olive AI product while we provide biometric patient ID even to their clients.

To top off a great weekend, as we were preparing to wrap up, the boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard emerges seemingly out of nowhere to take pictures with everyone. Well, a great way to end the show with a lasting memory of the charming champion!

Why Patient Photos Should Be Linked to Medical Records

November 9, 2016/10625 views / 2 Comments/in Biometric Hardware, BLOG, Facial Reciognition, Future of Biometrics, Health Care, Patient Identification, Patient Matching, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety /by John Trader

The following post on why patient photos should be added to medical records to improve patient safety was submitted by Michael Trader, President and Co-Founder of RightPatient®

The Push to Increase Patient ID Accuracy and Safety

Achieving accurate patient identification in healthcare is an important catalyst to ensure safe, cost-effective care delivery. Although we believe that accurate patient ID should have received more attention and scrutiny parallel to the rapid digitization of the healthcare industry, the issue has finally been thrust into the spotlight by powerful organizations such as AHIMA, the ONC, and CHIME as something that must be solved in order for other mandates (e.g. interoperability, health information exchange, population health, etc.) to materialize.

Why aren’t more healthcare providers capturing patient photos during registration?

Many healthcare organizations have proactively addressed the lingering issue of accurate patient identification by implementing new technologies that supplement existing methods of obtaining demographic information, insurance cards, and proof of ID. The idea is to add biometrics as an added layer of identity protection, security, and identification accuracy by asking patients to provide a physiological token prior to accessing health data and/or medical services. Biometrics for patient ID has rapidly caught on as a proven method to prevent fraud and medical ID theft, improve data integrity, prevent duplicate medical records, and safeguard protected health information (PHI).

Patient Photos Should be Captured During Registration

Despite the rising demand for biometric patient identification to improve patient identification and increase safety, not all solutions are created equal. Healthcare organizations that invest in unilateral biometric patient identification solutions quickly discover that they do not have the ability to easily and automatically capture the patient photo during registration and subsequent visits. This is unfortunate as the photo plays an important role in patient safety and in driving additional value throughout the ecosystem.

In addition, capturing the patient photo with a web camera during initial registration is not enough. This method often produces very poor quality photos, adds an extra step to the process, and the photos cannot be relied upon for other potential uses, such as facial recognition to verify patient identities during remote encounters.

One important differentiator that should be considered when researching a biometric ID solution is whether or not it offers the ability to capture a high-quality patient photo and recognize the patient in a single step. Why?

Patient photos are proven to reduce medical errors.
Respected, influential healthcare organizations recommend including patient photos with their medical record.
Patient photos increase patient safety.
Photos can be used as a second credential for multi-factor patient authentication.
The photo serves as a visual reminder to the provider, thereby enhancing caregiver communication with the patient.
High-quality patient photos allow healthcare providers to leverage facial recognition for accurate patient ID when patient’s access PHI or services in non-traditional settings such as mHealth apps, patient portals, and telemedicine. This enables a holistic approach to establishing accurate patient ID because it addresses all points along the care continuum instead of a narrow approach that only covers patient ID at the point of service in a brick and mortar setting.
In areas like the ED where time is critical, utilizing a web camera and adding an extra step in the workflow is impractical and inefficient.

Criteria that Defines an Effective Biometric Patient ID Solution

In addition to the points mentioned above and the standard questions that should be asked when researching the adoption of a biometric patient ID solution, we recommend that healthcare providers seriously consider the unique value of a platform like RightPatient® that seamlessly captures patient photos and identifies patients in a single step during registration, subsequent visits to a medical facility, and other touchpoints along the care continuum. This establishes a concrete, two-factor audit trail of patient visit activity and identity assurance.

Verify that the biometric patient ID solution offers the following patient photo capture features:

Convenience – Is the patient photo capture process easy and convenient for patients and staff? Photo capture should happen simultaneously with capturing their biometric credentials and should be fast. Otherwise, you run into delays and registration roadblocks in areas like the emergency room where time is of the essence.
Seamless integration and functionality – Patient identification and photo capture should be a seamless part of EHR workflow and not require staff to sign in and out of applications or constantly toggle between applications.
Affordability – Biometric patient ID platforms that offer simultaneous photo capture should be flexible and affordable and offer a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model option.

Conclusion

Capturing patient photos to increase safety and reduce medical costs is not a new concept in healthcare, yet it has failed to become mainstream compared to other industries. In fact, according to a recent report from the ECRI, despite the proven research that photos increase safety and engagement, only 20% of existing providers currently use patient photos. 20%! Think about that in the context of other industries that have used customer photos as part of their routine identification security protocols for years: membership management (e.g. gyms, fitness clubs), banking and finance, retail, education, government — the list is long.

If other industries have relied on the use of photos to augment identification accuracy, why is healthcare so far behind the curve? It seems as if healthcare market conditions and current and future initiatives to improve delivery, achieve better outcomes, perfect individual and population health, and reduce the cost of care are setting the stage for technology that can quickly and seamlessly capture patient photos as part of the identification process. The question is, are you investing in the right solution to harness this power?

Michael Trader is President and Co-Founder of RightPatient®. Michael is responsible for overseeing business development and marketing activities, government outreach, and for providing senior leadership on business and policy issues.

In Your Face: The Future of Federated Patient Identification

October 7, 2015/6514 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Facial Reciognition, Future of Biometrics, Health Care, Patient Identification /by John Trader

The following guest post was written by Michael Trader, Co-Founder and President of RightPatient®

The Patient ID Problem

The recurring and complex issue of how to establish and maintain accurate patient identification in healthcare and how to establish a federated patient identity is getting a lot of attention these days. Accurate patient identification in healthcare is a topic that has always garnered attention and concern, but perhaps it has gained momentum and urgency due to the rapid digitization of the industry and the concerted push for interoperability and national health information exchange to improve individual and population health. The push for increased interoperability could make patient data matching errors and mismatches exponentially more problematic and dangerous and it is widely believed that inadequate patient identification continues to jeopardize patient safety and artificially inflate the cost of care.

Can the use of facial recognition biometrics help establish a federated patient identity credential in healthcare?

Opinions on the most effective patient identification and patient matching strategies run the gamut. Some say standardizing patient demographic data will help, others feel that establishing a national patient identifier is the answer to the problem. What’s clear is that in the absence of any broad improvements to patient identification, the goal of establishing longitudinal patient records reflecting a patient’s experience across the care continuum, payers, geographic locations, and stages of life, will remain elusive.

One idea that is catching on with healthcare providers to help improve patient identification in healthcare is capturing a photo during registration that is linked to a unique electronic medical record.

Use of Patient Photos Increasing

Nearly 2.3 million people were victims of medical identity theft in 2014, according to the “Fifth Annual Study on Medical Identity Theft” released earlier this year by the Medical Identity Fraud Alliance (MIFA), an industry trade association of healthcare providers, payers and service providers – a 21% increase over the 2013 number of 1.8 million. Medical identity theft and healthcare fraud continue to be a pervasive problem throughout the industry and in the absence of a solution, the problem is only going to get worse as millions more Americans are brought into the healthcare fold through Obamacare.

To help fight the increase in medical identity theft and to ensure a patient’s identity is accurately verified at each step along the care continuum, many healthcare facilities are capturing a patient’s photo at registration and linking that to a unique electronic medical record. The idea is an attempt to protect patient privacy, ensure accurate insurance benefits and subsequent reimbursement, and connect a face with a name, providing another option for identification besides date of birth. The idea is catching on quickly and many are embracing the use of patient photos to increase security and improve patient safety, but what often goes unrealized is the potential for a patient photo to be leveraged as a unique identification credential across the entire care continuum.

Leveraging Patient Photos for a Federated Identity Across the Care Continuum

Whenever we hear the words “patient identification” most of us envision sitting across a registration desk at a hospital or doctor’s office providing demographic data and our driver’s license and/or insurance card. However, patient identification in healthcare has evolved to now include accurate identification at each and every patient touchpoint along the care continuum including patient portals, mhealth apps, telehealth, and home health just to name a few. One of the smartest strategies to ensure accurate patient identification at any point along the care continuum is to capture a patient’s photo at registration and then leverage that photo along the care continuum through biometric facial recognition technology.

Let’s take patient portals for example. Most of us know that Meaningful Use Stage 2 mandates that healthcare providers provide patients the ability to electronically view, download, and transmit health information. The most popular means to that end is the increasing use of patient portals yet many providers rely on antiquated identification protocols such as user names and passwords to protect access to this personal health information (PHI). The problem is relying on user names, passwords, and/or personal identification numbers (PINs) is risky and could potentially open the door to third party data breaches which are decimating the industry and exposing millions of patients’ PHI.

As an alternative to using user names and passwords, consider a healthcare organization that captures a patient’s photo during registration. Not only is that photo visible to patient registration staff and clinicians at each episode along the care continuum as a second form of multi-factor authentication, but if a patient signs into a patient portal and the hospital has deployed facial recognition identification to authorize a patient’s identity prior to logging in, the hospital has just successfully leveraged that photo as an identification credential for access to their PHI. Same goes for mHealth apps. Biometric patient identification providers that offer the value and flexibility of facial recognition authentication can also help third party developers and healthcare providers add this technology to off-the-shelf (OTS) or custom mHealth apps as a more secure way of identifying patients with the ability to work with any standard camera.

Coupled with the fact that 80% of patients are open to healthcare interactions on smart devices but remain highly sensitive to sharing health data, facial recognition biometrics for accurate identification has already proven itself as a more secure alternative than user names and passwords not to mention the fact that 69% of 16 -24 year olds recently polled indicated they believe biometrics will be faster and easier than passwords and PINs and half foresee the death of passwords by the year 2020.

Writing on the Wall?

With predictions that 50% of smartphones sold by 2019 will have a fingerprint sensor and over a billion biometric mobile devices will ship worldwide by the year 2020 (all equipped with cameras sophisticated enough to use facial recognition), the evolution of patient identification in healthcare is tilting more towards the use of biometrics to replace user names, passwords, and PINs as the preferred method of authentication due to it’s increased security and the flexibility to apply the technology for accurate identification at more patient touchpoints borne from the rapid digitization of the industry. Considering the fact that 41% of consumers stress over smartphone mobile security and biometrics are already overtaking passwords as the de facto identification credential on smartphones, could this be the perfect storm for a rise in the use of facial recognition for accurate patient identification?

Responsible approaches to improving patient identification in healthcare must now include addressing accuracy at any touchpoint where a patient can now access PHI. The advent of facial recognition as a unique identifier in a singular or multi-factor environment is a smart answer to the challenge of ensuring a patient receives accurate care throughout the continuum no matter if they are physically present or accessing services from cyberspace.

Since more patients expect providers to ensure privacy and protect their PHI, is it time to more closely examine implementation of a patient identification solution that leverages biometric facial recognition?