Verato https://verato.com based in McLean Virginia, providing cloud-based patient matching solutions, has just announced that The Pew Charitable Trusts released a report highlighting referential matching technology as one of four opportunities to improve patient matching nationwide. The report, “Enhanced Patient Matching is Critical to Achieving Full Promise of Digital health Records” is the result of two years of research by Pew.
Patient matching is the ability to accurately link all of a patient’s health data within and across health systems. However, the problem linking patient’s data across health systems has been problematic within the healthcare industry for decades.
To compile the report, Pew evaluated solutions to the problem through commissioned research, focus groups with patients, interviews with hospital executives, and with conversations with experts. The report explores the impacts of inaccurate patient matching, provides an overview on progress to date, and outlines key next steps and recommendations to improve patient matching.
To improve patient matching, unique patient identifiers, patient-empowered solutions, demographic data standardization, and referential matching is needed. Referential matching technology in the next-generation patient matching technology pioneered by Verato.
Referential matching technology is comprehensive, continuously updated, and a highly curated database of identities in the U.S. Each identify in the database contains a complete profile of demographic data, including common data errors, and a 30 year history of the data on an individual. By using the database as an answer key during matching, referential matching technology achieves benchmark match accuracy rates not attained by other approaches.
Most importantly, Referential matching can correct an existing matching system to become the matching system of record. Also, referential matching allows a health enterprise to immediately see which patients in the health enterprise have in common with other health enterprises using the same referential matching engine. This can be accomplished without the need for additional systems and technology that would need to be acquired and implemented.
According to Verato CEO Mark LaRow, “A referential matching service should be offered to U.S health organizations as a national utility and be part of the nationwide technical architecture to support interoperability. Health information networks can use this referential matching utility for matching patient records across each other’s networks.”
He further explains, “Matching patient records across networks would establish a national patient record locator service. This approach would not require a massive overhaul of systems at the local hospital level. Health enterprises participating in the networks could maintain their existing technologies, processes, and governance standards, yet reap the benefit of maintaining high patient match rates when attempting to find their patients’ records at other healthcare facilities.
Referential matching is a proven technology with Verato’s customers including providers, payers, and HIEs like the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Northwell Health, Intermountain Healthcare, Healthix, and Chesapeake Regional Information System for our Patients, plus San Diego Health Connect.
To read the report “Enhanced Patient Matching is Critical to Achieving Full Promise of Digital Health Records”, go to www.pewtrusts.org.