This presentation is a summary of the M2SYS free learning podcast on patient identification in healthcare. We interviewed Nancy Farrington, EMPI Administrator with MainLine Health in Broomall, PA who has over 30 years of experience in patient access and patient identification. Nancy also served on the National Association of Healthcare Access Managemennt (NAHAM) board of directors. During our conversation with Nancy, we asked her to: 1. Define the #1 challenge in patient identification 2. Explain patient identification's role in patient safety strategies 3. Describe the real risks of patient misidentification 4. Offer her opinion on what can be done to prevent patient misidentification 5. Discuss patient identification issues across health information exchanges The 37 minute podcast covers all of these topics plus some additional thoughts by Nancy on what new patient identification technologies she feels are important for hospitals to research for possible adoption such as biometric patient identification. For an audio version of the podcast please point your browser to: http://www.m2sys.com/podcasts.htm Thank you to Nancy for her time and expertise on our inaugural free learning podcast! Look for more podcasts on our "Resources" page in the near future.

1. M2SYS Technology TM
Free Online Learning Podcasts
Patient Identification in Healthcare with Nancy
Farrington, CHAM, EMPI Administrator – HIM, Main Line Health
System

2. The #1 challenge in patient identification
Patient identification’s role in patient safety
strategies
Real risks of patient misidentification
What can be done to prevent patient
misidentification?
Patient Identification issues across
health information exchanges

3. Key Points:
• No established standards on what to use for patient ID
• Lack of consistency on how patient ID data is collected
• Public perception that they don’t have to present ID when
accessing healthcare
Did you know?
Nancy Farrington has over 30 years of
experience in patient access and served on
NAHAM’s board of directors.

4. • Joint Commission standard for 2 patient identifiers only applies
to in-house patients (small subset of patient population), not at
the point of registration
• Healthcare Information & Management Systems (HIMSS) working
on developing positive patient ID documentation
• Congress is investigating the possibility of creating a uniform
patient identification card among other options
• Clear lack of patient identification standards hampering industry
• Accurate patient identification is essential in patient safety

5. • College of Healthcare Information Management Executives
(CHIME) recently conducted study that 19% of hospitals that
participated had an adverse patient mismatch in past year
Did you know?
Healthcare fraud is estimated to cost between
$70 billion and $255 billion per year which
accounts for between 3% and 10% of total
healthcare costs. – The Ponemon Institute

6. • Conservative industry estimates indicate that duplicate medical
records cost approximately $20 - $25 per duplicate for remediation
• Many believe that the cost of duplicate medical records are higher for
healthcare than losses related to medical identity theft
• Patient misidentification sometimes leads to unnecessary additional
testing & duplicate patient care that insurance won’t cover
• Time lost by patient and provider is often overlooked as a
consequence of patient misidentification & duplicate medical records

7. • Lawsuits & loss of confidence by community are additional costs and
risks borne by patient misidentification and duplicate medical records
Did you know?
Accurate Patient Identification has been number
one on the list of the Joint Commission’s
Hospital National Patient Safety Goals since 2003.

8. • Clearly not getting the attention it deserves
• Issue may reach critical mass within next year partly because of push
to electronic medical/health records (EHR/EMR), healthcare
information exchanges (HIEs), and Meaningful Use
• At the end of Meaningful Use round 2 is when many expect duplicate
medical record issue to become more prominent
Did you know?
Healthcare fraud continues to be the top category for
arrests and convictions each year according to the
Coalition Against Insurance Fraud.

9. • Conducted in 2008
• Focused on contributing factors to duplicate medical records & what
is being done to prevent and resolve them, not the cost
• More than 200 respondents
• Respondents categorized into high and low performers:
• High performers – Those having less than 2% duplicate rate in
MPI
• Low performers – Those having greater than 6% duplicate rate in
MPI
• Most healthcare organizations underreport the number of duplicate
records in their system

10. • What characteristics distinguished high performers from low
performers for patient data collection?
• High Performers
• Collecting patient social security numbers
• Collecting patient address & telephone number
• Collecting other names and aliases
*(If you can check on previous variations of people’s names, you will have a
higher patient match rate)
• Low Performers
• Had higher rate of patient ID errors and problems found by
nursing and clinical departments (more expensive to resolve
patient misidentification)

11. Conclusions
• One conclusion from study is that the more data elements that are
required during patient ID process, less likely that an error will occur
• Future studies will include more in-depth analysis on what types of
technologies facilities are using (for example, biometric patient
identification) and how this will impact the results
• Nancy predicts that more hospitals will use biometrics for patient ID
in the future, helping to boost adoption and acceptance
• Organizations that have multi-disciplined approach to educate staff &
resolve duplicates are more successful than those who delegate
responsibility to strictly one department

12. • Adopting new technologies to assist in the patient ID process
• Examples
• Smart cards
• Biometrics
• Advanced probabilistic matching software
• There is long term return on investment (ROI) for technology
upgrades
Did you know?
Nearly half of all medical identity theft victims lost
their health care coverage and only 10% of all medical
identity theft victims’ incidents were completely resolved.
- The Ponemon Institute

13. • Information is being exchanged without available contact
(conversation) with the patient for confirmation – i.e. electronic data
exchanges will require more matching data points
• Size of database increases chances of misidentifying patients and
creating duplicate medical records
• Patient access to data will uncover more identification errors and
duplicate medical records

15. Contact Information
John Trader
PR and Marketing
M2SYS Technology
1050 Crown Pointe Pkwy.
Suite 470
Atlanta, GA 30338
jtrader@m2sys.com
770-821-1734
www.m2sys.com
Twitter: twitter.com/m2sys
Facebook: facebook.com/m2sys
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/m2sys-technology