The recently announced patient data enrichment functionalities in the 4medica Big Data MPI can reduce the risk of patient matching issues caused by human and machine errors. In a Black Book survey of about 1,400 Health IT managers, the results revealed that about 33-percent of rejected payment claims came from errors in patient data. The average cost of these denied claims per hospital was $1.5 million.
The survey results also showed that large hospitals with over 150 beds may take more than five months to verify and clean up patient data consisting of hundreds of thousands of records. Also, incorrect patient identification while trying to avoid patient ID duplication can cause record overlays which are very costly and unsafe.
Here’s a brief discussion of the features and benefits provided by the 4medica Big Data MPI and Big Data Identity Enrichment.
What Is 4medica?
4medica is a leading provider of Clinical Data Exchange and Big Data Management platforms. These solutions have helped different healthcare organizations bring together patient data from disparate sources with relatively high accuracy.
4medica offers cloud-based solutions that are user-friendly, scalable and maintenance-free. These applications are currently linking up hundreds of organizations such as ACOs, HINs, HIEs, physicians, labs and radiology centers.
Benefits of 4medica Applications
1. Accuracy
4medica offers superior patient matching technology with its Referential Identity Engine. It looks at data and addresses connected to college addresses and medical history that is decades old to ensure that the right patient is linked to the correct record. To date, no other solution goes this far back in time to ensure accuracy.
2. Scalability
The master patient index created by 4medica for Big Data management can scale up to handle an unlimited number of patient identities. So, it’s an excellent option for large hospital systems and health information exchanges. It’s also ideal for community, regional and national interoperability systems. But the software-as-a-service (SaaS) and pay-for-what-you-use models make it useful for smaller health organizations.
3. Enriched Data
The quality of diagnosis is greatly influenced by the type of data available to the physician. That’s why 4medica links up to different third-party data sources to give you detailed patient information, with historic demographic and geographic information. Records are matched in real-time and checked for accuracy within a few seconds.
4. Effective Patient Communication
Healthcare organizations that use 4medica solutions have instant access to correct home mailing or email addresses. This drastically reduces the number of returned mails and makes appointment reminders and other vital patient communication more effective.
5. Fast De-duplication of Patient Records
Instead of merely comparing one record to another to prevent duplicates, 4medica matches demographics data with an up-to-date reference database of patient identities. Using inverse index technology, the same type of technology used by search engines and non-SQL databases, the process of eliminating duplicate medical records occurs within a few seconds at a greatly reduced cost. This prevents data overlays, a situation in which two records are merged erroneously because of machine automation errors.
Need Help Using 4medica?
Would you like to use 4medica and other referential identity solutions in your healthcare organization to eliminate patient identity matching issues? If so, call Lifepoint today at 877.522.8378 or contact us for a free consultation.