Medical Identification Numbers Recommended
The National Alliance for Health Information Technology has announced their recommendation that a universal system employing unique identifiers for patients by implemented. Participation in the system by patients would be entirely voluntary. The organization published their position in a position paper entitled “Safety in Numbers: Resolving Shortcomings in the Matching of Patients with Their Electronic Records”.
The group argues that the new system would be more accurate and reliable, in addition to being more secure than the most common practices used to identify patients. Those include name, birth date, social security number, and address to correctly match patients with relevant information through searches of medical records. Those identifiers are frequently employed to link patients with their medical records distributed across different facilities within a healthcare network.
The organization’s Technology Leadership Committee notes that use of these basic parameters for search retrieval has an error rate on the order of ten percent. The group cites concerns that this will continue to increase as more individuals come into contact with the healthcare system. As well, there is some question as to whether or not the practices of querying violate patient privacy and confidentiality.
The Alliance does not specifically name a group that would be responsible for doling the identifiers out to the patients. Previously suggested ideas for oversight include management by a private, non-profit agency. The organization did not comment as to whether or not the federal government should play a role in this organization but focused instead on development of the system described.
The original text of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 called for the issuance of unique identifiers for every U.S. resident by the Department of Health and Human Services. This plan, however, was reversed in a Congressional decision which forbade such a program by HHS. The turnaround is attributed to privacy activists and organizations with existing systems unwilling to make modifications.
December 21, 2007 Related topics: Quality, Safety, Errors