From the January/February 2018 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
The solution
Managing and sharing patient information across multiple systems and sites of care requires a holistic approach, free of data silos and disjointed records that hinder patient care and optimal clinical workflows. As health information exchange proliferates, organizations must be able to quickly reconcile the exorbitant amount of patient data within the network.
To give their providers an enterprise view of any given patient, and enable greater clinical and operational efficiency, SDI implemented a vendor-agnostic enterprise master patient index (EMPI) to facilitate medical record reconciliation and link imaging files to the same individual in real time. The patient matching technology enabled integration and clean-up of more than 5.2 million records within 18 source systems across SDI’s 35 imaging centers, 12 regional hospitals and third-party sources, and prevented the creation of 100,000 duplicate records in the first six months.
Additionally, SDI was able to:
• Move its patient master file out of the billing system and institute a stand-alone network for cross-platform patient identification.
• Provide an automated, centralized interface to integrate, resolve and unify patient records across all clinical and financial systems.
• Bring accuracy and consistency to the complex patient data environment by creating a single source of truth for every individual.
• Establish SDI as a fully integrated entity for seamless health information exchange and a longitudinal view of a patient’s medical imaging history regardless of where the exam was performed.
Patient identity management has made a big difference in the efficiency and effectiveness of SDI’s clinicians and staff, and has reduced wait times for patients and their families.
Automation and data standardization provided by the EMPI have streamlined workflow and productivity, affording downstream benefits to SDI’s operational and financial outcomes. The enterprise implementation allows radiologists, technicians and other staff members to provide improved patient services via portals and online billing tools, delivery of electronic reports and electronic image linking with added ease and security.
Prior to implementing the EMPI technology, radiologists at SDI had a limited view of their patient’s historic data, which led to continuous disruptions throughout each phase of the workflow, and delayed turnaround time of reports. Since the patient matching implementation in January 2017, the number of addendums has reduced by 75 percent on average. That means clinicians spend less time performing repeated documentation tasks and more time assessing, treating and engaging with patients.
About the authors: David Bennett is vice president of partnerships and alliances for NextGate, a global health care leader in identity management. Dr. Brian Frohna is a Phoenix-based, board-certified radiologist specializing in diagnostic radiology and neuroradiology and chief technology officer of SDI.
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