Tag: patient identity
Medical identity theft is a growing concern for healthcare organizations in the digital age. In 2017, healthcare data breaches accounted for 24% of all data breaches, rising to 29% in 2018. In just 12 months, the total number of personal medical records exposed jumped from 5.3 million to 9.9 million. In fact, healthcare data breaches tend to expose many more individual records than other industries. For example, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center, 43.9% of breaches in the first half of 2019 were in business, while only 36.9% were in healthcare. But for healthcare, this meant exposing a staggering 77.4% of all records left vulnerable to identity theft, compared to just 9.5% by business breaches. The potential impact of a healthcare data breach seems to be further-reaching than in other fields. At the same time, healthcare is slightly behind other industries when it comes to data security. Financial services have a two-decade head start to refine their anti-fraud strategies. This, coupled with the fact that medical identities are worth 20 to 50 times more to fraudsters than financial identities, means medical identity theft is increasingly appealing to criminals. It’s a big concern, but healthcare organizations can use data to fight data theft. When you’re armed with the right information, you can put in place the right strategy to protect your patients. What is medical identity theft? Medical identity theft is when someone uses another person’s health-related identifying information without them knowing. This could include their name and address, Social Security number, health records, or insurance information. Fraudsters can use this information to access medical services without paying, submit false insurance claims, or buy drugs. They pretend to be someone else to access services illegally. In addition, that personal information could be used for other kinds of identity fraud or blackmail. What are the consequences of medical identity theft? Karly Rowe, Vice President New Product Development, Identity & Care Management Product at Experian Health, says: “For patients, the impact of having their personal information stolen, and then possibly used to make false claims in their name, can be hugely violating. When someone’s record becomes overlaid with a thief’s record, this can have massive consequences for that person’s future treatment. It’s a major stress to sort out – both administratively and financially. And for organizations, there’s obviously the reputational hit. The relationship between provider and patient is based on trust. When you fail to secure your patients’ most personal information, you risk losing that trust for good.” It’s also a major cost. Medical fraud in the U.S. is estimated to cost somewhere between $80 billion and $230 billion, with the cost to individual providers and payers coming in at around $2 million per breach. To tackle the problem, healthcare organizations are stepping up their security practices across the board. A HIMSS survey, in partnership with Experian Data Breach Resolution, reported that data security strategies have improved. Ninety-two percent of those asked had performed a formal risk analysis, and more than half had increased their patient data security budget. A number of organizations also teamed up to form the Medical Identity Fraud Alliance, to mobilize the industry to tackle the problem. Still, there’s a ways to go. 3 ways to leverage data insights to prevent medical identity theft Protecting patient data calls for a data-based solution. Here are three ways to leverage consumer data and technology to protect your patients and keep their information safe: Resolve patient identities. Accurate patient data is the cornerstone of data management. If your records aren’t entirely reliable to begin with, keeping them safe and secure will be much harder. Put preventative measures in place to minimize the risk of duplicates and errors. Assigning a Universal Patient Identifier (UPI) will let you follow the entire patient journey, so you have a complete, accurate and secure picture of each patient. Protect patient identities. Patient portals allow people to access their health information from their personal devices. It’s convenient and can improve engagement and health outcomes. Unfortunately, they can also become vulnerable to breaches by data thieves. You have to make it easy for patients to use portals, but difficult for fraudsters to get their hands on that personal data. As patient portals gain popularity, you must have the right technology in place to validate and protect patient identities. Automating patient enrollment with a tool like Precise ID® can help authenticate patient identities from the start using identity-proofing, fraud management and device recognition. Enrich patient identities. With data insights, you can check that your patient is who they say they are the moment they arrive in reception. Using the broadest and most trustworthy datasets, identity verification solutions make constant checks, so you have a single, accurate and 360° view of each patient. Not only is this ‘golden record’ the cornerstone of patient care and experience, it’ll let your staff update patient data during intake without manual corrections. Medical records contain some of the most sensitive personal information, so it’s vital to safeguard it with the strongest security that exists. — Download this free eBook to learn how to evolve today\'s patient matching technologies or find out more about how to protect your patient data and prevent medical identity theft.
Medical identity theft is a growing problem for the healthcare industry: nearly 15.1 million patient records were compromised in 2018, an increase of nearly 270% on the previous year. While providers are busy rolling out patient portals and electronic medical records to better serve consumers, criminals are sneaking through the cracks to steal patient data and profit from vulnerable health systems. The rapid rise in medical identity theft is partly explained by the fact that it goes undetected for much longer than other types of identity theft, giving criminals more time to use stolen personal information for financial gain. It’s also a lot more lucrative. Medical identities can be used to access treatment and drugs, make fraudulent benefits claims and even create fake IDs to buy and sell medical equipment. This can be devastating for victims, both emotionally and financially. Unlike credit card theft, where victims aren’t considered financially liable, 65% of people who fall prey to medical identity fraudsters are left with hospital bills running into the tens of thousands. The compromised medical record is tough to reconcile, jeopardizing future medical treatment. For providers, a data breach can mean significant reputational damage and loss of trust, and huge financial consequences – each breach costs an average of $2.2 million. But what’s most alarming for providers is that more than half of data breaches originate within the organization. Unfortunately, many providers lack sufficient security protocols and detection tools to safeguard the data they’re holding. The good news is that the tools exist to help you protect your patient data. What can healthcare providers learn from other industries about identity protection? Banking and financial services have pioneered identity protection over the last twenty years, and healthcare can learn a lot by looking at what’s worked in those industries. For consumers, using digital technology to pay your bills, book flights and buy pretty much anything is the norm, all with reassuringly quick fraud detection and resolution. Healthcare has been a little slower to embrace digitization in this way. Despite the opportunities, fears around security, privacy and inconveniencing patients have stalled efforts to transform outmoded processes. Drawing on two decades of innovations in other fields, fast-paced technological developments mean many of the early challenges around implementing safe and secure patient portals have been overcome. 6 strategies to keep patient data safe Here are six smart ways to ensure your organization has done everything possible to safeguard patient data. Tell your patients how you’re keeping their data safe Patient trust is at the heart of a successful patient-provider relationship. Share the steps your organization is taking to secure patient information, so patients feel reassured and confident in using their portal. Data security should be a key strand in your patient engagement messaging. Verify patient identities to protect access to medical records To avoid HIPAA violations, it’s critical to ensure you’re giving access to the right patient. Secure log-in monitoring and device intelligence can help you confirm that the person trying to log in is who they say they are. When something doesn’t add up, identity proofing questions can be triggered to provide an extra check. In an exciting new development, the healthcare industry is also starting to see the use of biometrics to supplement existing identity-proofing solutions. Just as you might use facial recognition to unlock your smartphone, there are now ways to authenticate your healthcare consumers’ identity using the same technology. Automate patient portal enrollment You want your portal to be as secure as possible, but not at the expense of your patients’ time and effort. An automated enrollment process can eliminate the hassle of long, complicated set-ups and reduce errors at the same time. Arm your organization with a multi-layered security strategy There is no silver bullet for protecting patient information—it will require various tools. A robust data security strategy will be multi-layered, including device recognition, identity proofing and fraud management. Educate staff on security threats and warning signs Data breaches aren\'t all malicious – human error is a massive component, from mailing personal data to the wrong patients, to accidentally publishing data on public websites or leaving a laptop behind after getting off the subway. Training staff on the potential pitfalls will help them help you in protecting confidential patient information. Develop a robust device strategy ‘Bring Your Own Device’ arrangements (BYOD) are convenient for staff and patients, but personal devices need to be secured when accessing patient information across the network. Make sure your teams, patients and visitors are aware of how to log-on securely to WiFi and follow best practice to keep data safe. In a climate of ‘doing more with less’, healthcare leaders are turning to other industries to find ways to boost quality of care and streamline operational efficiency. Automation, digitization and consumer-centric approaches make good business sense across the board, but they’re sensible investments for your data security strategy too. Investing in secure patient identities is a way to prevent painful and unnecessary losses down the line – and it’s what patients have come to expect. — Find out what more you could do to shore up your data security and prevent medical identity theft.
“Build it and they will come” might work for 1980s movie characters, multinational coffee franchises and beloved sports teams, but it’s not a great engagement strategy for most consumer-facing organizations – especially in healthcare. Take patient portals, for example. Giving your patients a way to access their health records can help improve their health outcomes, increase compliance with care plans, and create a more positive healthcare experience overall. But do your customers know the portal exists? Do they know how it could serve them? Do they trust it? You’ve built it, but how many patients are actually logging on? In 2017, over half the US population had access to a patient portal. Around half of those people used it at least once in the previous year. Of those who didn’t, 59% said it was because they didn’t feel they needed to access an online medical record, and 25% were worried about privacy and security. This tells us two things: If healthcare providers want to increase the number of patients using their portal, they need to proactively communicate the benefits to those patients, and healthcare providers could do more to reassure patients they take portal security seriously. If patients discover that using the portal is better than not using it, and that they can do so securely, they will be more likely to log on. You can address both in your patient engagement and marketing strategies. Perhaps the better mantra is: “if you solve their problem and tell them about it, they will come”. Balancing portal security and patient convenience Your patient portal is more than just a platform for patients to access test results, sort out bills or schedule appointments. It’s a way to nurture the patient-provider relationship. And at its heart, that relationship is about trust. One way to build trust is to ensure your portal meets the strictest of security measures without creating an excessive admin burden for patients. You can do this with a security strategy that layers up several protective measures to help you tackle common areas of vulnerability, including weak ID verification, over-reliance on password-protection, and failure to encrypt sensitive data. A few practical ways to keep your patient portal secure include: using ID verification when someone signs up for the portal using device intelligence and identity proofing when a user signs in to the portal deploying extra security checks where the risk of identity fraud is higher putting systems in place to flag and respond to security breaches as fast as possible. A solution like PreciseID® can help you take care of your patients’ privacy and security behind the scenes. They’ll see just enough to reassure them that you’re taking their security seriously, without any protracted log-in process that puts them off using the portal altogether. Marketing your patient portal so more patients benefit from it Solving your patients’ concerns about security is just one route to boosting portal utilization. Another important way to ensure more patients use and benefit from the patient portal is to actively encourage them to access their online records regularly. Research suggests individuals who are encouraged to use their online medical record by their provider are almost twice as likely to access it, compared to those who weren’t actively encouraged. So how do you convince your patients of the benefits of regularly logging on? That it’s not just a convenient way to manage their medical journey, but could result in better health? The answer lies in consumer data – the lifestyle, demographic, psychographic and behavioral information that gives you a fuller understanding of what drives your patients. Experian Health’s ConsumerView data analytics can capture insights that let you reach out to your consumers with the right message, in the right way, at the right time. Do they live a busy lifestyle? Reassure them that the portal can save them time. Are there lifestyle factors that may hinder their adherence to medication? Encourage them to use the portal to make sure their prescriptions are up to date. If you discover your consumers are big social media users, you might target your portal engagement campaign through those channels. Equally, if a consumer doesn’t have any social media accounts, there would be no point investing in Facebook ads. Personalization makes your patients feel taken care of, leading to greater trust, loyalty and satisfaction. Increase patient portal engagement today In the wake of consumerism and IT transformation across many other industries, a tailored and digitally secure healthcare service is a must. “Consumers now expect to be provided with a turnkey, individual experience that is fast and seamless,” said Kristen Simmons, Experian Health’s senior vice president of strategy and innovation. Your patient portal must be seen to provide a valuable and secure service. While there’s a way to go to increase the number of patients making full use of portals, the tools exist to support healthcare providers’ engagement goals. Learn more about how your organization can leverage consumer insights to improve patient retention and engagement.
There’s no doubt that identity theft is a concern for any industry that handles sensitive customer information; health care is no exception. In 2017 alone, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported 477 healthcare breaches. Together, they compromised nearly 5.6 million patient records. Without adequate IT security, everything that organizations use to improve patient engagement and the continuum of care – especially patient portals – becomes an open door for hackers. But how do we keep patient data secure without burdening patients? We asked Victoria Dames, Experian’s senior director of identity management, how the healthcare industry is evolving to solve for identity theft, as well as best practices all healthcare organizations can adopt to better meet this growing threat. In the world of healthcare, both patients and providers are understandably hyper-sensitive about the exchange and security of healthcare data. How is the industry arming itself to protect data? Are there any shifts you’ve witnessed in security practices over the past few years? Absolutely! The industry has quickly evolved into leveraging technology to share data between organizations and with their patients, but this does bring inherit risk. Criminals also took notice to this shift, and medical identity theft became one of the fastest growing types of identity theft with a roughly 22 percent annual growth. With this evolution, the industry has tightened up on data access, especially as it pertains to the patient. Over the last five years, we’ve seen the shift to enable technology to help identity-proof patients before granting them access to sensitive information. This used to be a manual process. What are some of the best practices healthcare organizations can adopt to limit instances of medical identity theft? First, organizations must understand where their access points are throughout their ecosystems. With 64 percent of patients citing a privacy issue as a key concern for accessing health information online, they should inform patients that they’re providing secure methods for access to their information. Additionally, healthcare organizations must evaluate how physicians access different types of data and portals. As healthcare caught up to electronic records and systems, portals for e-prescribing also arrived. Given the nature of this use case, providing a heightened NIST level of identity proofing is required. The key is to assess what level of identity proofing is needed at each entry point to keep balance on security and the end-user experience. When you look to the future of healthcare, what types of digital technologies and solutions do you see providers putting in place to prevent fraud and protect patient data? Technology moves quickly and so do we. Identity proofing has seen an acceleration in the use of biometrics at different points of entry throughout healthcare organizations, which strengthens our solution. We are starting to see the use of biometrics, similar to your phone face ID, used more broadly through healthcare in conjunction with existing identity-proofing solutions. Experian achieved the Kantara Initiative certification with adherence to the latest guidelines achieving NIST 800-63-3 IAL2 (National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication Digital Identity Guidelines 800-63-3 for Identity Assurance Level 2 (IAL2)). This reinforces our commitment to support clients in authenticating consumers, while balancing a positive experience. Learn more about Experian’s identity management solutions.
People increasingly expect immediate access to information at their fingertips. They want online access for everything from food delivery to healthcare. But as healthcare organizations enroll more patients through online access, how do they protect themselves from data breaches without impeding patient engagement? Data breaches are more prevalent and costlier than ever. Up 6.4 percent in 2018 compared to 2017, the global costs of data breaches reached $3.86 million last year. The healthcare industry has been particularly hard-hit. Over 90 percent of organizations have experienced a data breach since 2016, and more than 180 million records have been stolen since 2015. Just last year, a Missouri-based healthcare organization discovered that its patient portal was vulnerable for more than a month after hackers installed malware. In that time, almost 6,000 patients’ debit and credit card numbers could have been compromised. This incident alone demonstrates that improving cybersecurity in healthcare is vitally important. This is why one of New York\'s largest medical groups, AdvantageCare Physicians, made it a priority to strengthen the security of its Epic MyChart by adding a multilayer identity verification step at the time of patient enrollment and throughout every portal access request thereafter. Patient identity verification secures patient portals More than just satisfying the need for constant connectivity, patient portals are exceptionally helpful. They allow patients to access test results, view their medical record, schedule appointments online, and communicate with their providers from their mobile devices. Despite online platforms being a target for hackers, AdvantageCare Physicians executives know that patient portals help patients engage in their healthcare and empower them to take control of their health. So the organization turned to the same technology that is trusted by banks, retailers, and government agencies to protect this valuable tool. Identity-proofing technology can quickly authenticate patients when they access an online portal by evaluating the identity, device, and risk factors of a given user. This multilayered check happens in a second so patients aren’t left waiting on a load screen. Through continuous protection that ensures complete security without sacrificing ease of use, patients\' trust grows because they know their electronic medical records are safe. This patient trust can go a long way. A Software Advice study found that due to concerns about data breaches, 21 percent of patients keep information from their doctors. Securing its patient healthcare portal with Experian Health’s Precise ID helps AdvantageCare Physicians open up communication to provide better care. This, in addition to improving access to resources, supports the organization’s goals of improving health management and promoting wellness. These additional verification steps also protect AdvantageCare Physicians from compliance risks. For example, the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Promoting Interoperability standards set out requirements for collecting and maintaining electronic medical information to ensure healthcare cybersecurity. Experian’s Precise ID complies with this and many other programs. Decreased need for IT support Given the many advantages of a fully protected patient portal, AdvantageCare Physicians\' final concern was the effect of increased self-service traffic. More users accessing the portal more regularly might create bottlenecks. But patient identity proofing actually increases the platform’s user bandwidth. For example, Precise ID streamlines the process for patients signing up. Traditionally, AdvantageCare Physicians\' IT department would have to validate each new patient identity on the back end, but Precise ID can quickly authenticate these users. This has reduced the need for IT support by 80 percent. IT also spends less time correcting records because letting patients create their own accounts increases accuracy while reducing the number of duplicates. Online self-service platforms for healthcare organizations like AdvantageCare Physicians enhance patient care. But just like any other online transaction, patients need to know that any information they provide through the portal is secure. Sufficient cybersecurity for its healthcare portal lets AdvantageCare Physicians focus on delivering the personalized resources patients need without the worry of a data breach. Learn more about how to reduce risks during patient enrollment.
In a recent healthcare information technology survey, more than 40 percent of chief information officers identified patient matching as healthcare’s top IT concern. And though a quarter of the respondents admitted it wasn’t a current priority for their organizations, they did say that it very much should be. There’s no shortage of reasons why, but the most pressing is the need to reduce medical errors, which account for over 250,000 deaths in the United States every single year. Case in point: Seventeen percent of CIOs acknowledged that errors in matching data with the right medical identities have led directly to adverse outcomes for patients. The numbers speak for themselves: Healthcare organizations must find more effective ways to manage the data within their networks. That begins with building a robust medical database that not only hoses data, but also knows how to match it with the proper patients. How robust EMPIs streamline workflows An enterprise master patient index (EMPI) is a database that can help you clean up your data and eliminate duplicate and inaccurate records. It uses algorithms to match exact data elements among disparate records, as well as elements that fall within an acceptable range of possible compatibility. Using technology that can apply an algorithm of probabilistic and referential matching methodologies will allow healthcare organizations to expand beyond the limitations of conventional single methodology matching, as both probabilistic and referential matching techniques provide a higher degree of likeliness. The system assigns these data points to unique identities that follow patients throughout the organization. Any new data generated within the network is also attached to this identity, meaning physicians, specialists, pharmacists, and other members of the patient’s care team can access and update it as needed. EMPI support tools and unique patient identities are building blocks toward creating a healthcare ecosystem that’s truly interoperable. According to an April 2018 survey by Black Book, hospitals with an EMPI report “consistently correct patient identification at an overall average 93 percent of registrations and 85 percent of externally shared records among non-networked providers.” Unfortunately, not all healthcare systems possess the IT infrastructure to support these programs. And as long as some organizations fail to integrate similar platforms, providers won’t reap the benefits of industry-wide interoperability — and patients will continue to suffer. Whether it’s a frustrating billing mix-up, privacy breach, or a detrimental (or even fatal) misdiagnosis, many errors can be successfully prevented with an EMPI. Filling in the holes The goal of such a system should be to standardize data entry and access within each healthcare organization, as well as across the entire industry. Such a network could protect, govern, and match unique patient identities across every discipline and every aspect of their care continuum. But in order for the system to achieve these goals, you need to be sure you’re feeding it relevant, recent patient information. To ensure you have enough patient data to build an EMPI that accurately matches profiles, ask yourself these questions: 1. What kind of medical care have my patients received before this visit? When patients enter a new hospital, they’re given a brand-new identity, or patient number, that’s only relevant to that healthcare system. The identity you assign them within your own organization doesn’t provide any insight about what they’ve experienced before their current visit — and that’s the crux of the matter. When patient information is siloed within a specific system, you have no view of the patient’s medical history. But when it’s shared across systems and fed into a more dynamic and interoperable data management system, patients will ultimately receive better care. 2. Who are my patients when they’re not “patients”? It’s important to understand who patients are when they’re not in the hospital. Yes, they’re husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. But some could be physically fit, while others haven’t seen the inside of a gym in years. Some might get regular checkups, but others cannot afford to see a physician regularly. All of these traits factor into your patients’ identities. With a comprehensive EMPI, you can tie them together to understand the environmental and socioeconomic factors that influence your patients’ health. You can then identify what social determinants of health need to be addressed or could potentially influence the efficacy of certain treatments. 3. Can we identify patients without a picture ID? Biometrics such as fingerprints and iris scans are more secure forms of identification than a photo ID. They’ll not only make it easier to identify patients, but will also offer heightened security against fraud. That being said, even biometric identification isn’t 100 percent secure unless it’s part of a database, such as the EMPI, that accurately matches patient identities with relevant medical data. Accepting that the healthcare industry needs better data management and patient-matching strategies is the first step to realizing those goals. EMPIs have shown organizations the value in universal patient identities. Now, they simply need comprehensive databases that are robust enough to keep patient identities consistent across the entire healthcare ecosystem.
This week, Experian Health is a proud partner of National Health IT Week. U.S. National Health IT Week is a nationwide awareness week focused on catalyzing actionable change within the U.S. health system through the application of information and technology. Comprehensive healthcare reform is not possible without system-wide adoption of health information technology, which improves the quality of healthcare delivery, increases patient safety, decreases medical errors, and strengthens the interaction between patients and healthcare providers. Initiated in 2006 by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), National Health IT Week has emerged as a landmark occasion for using health IT as part of the overall solution to improve America’s healthcare as a bipartisan, federally led, market driven initiative. While the healthcare industry has transformed in the last decade as health organizations have moved to electronic health records (EHRs), it brings us one step closer to the vision of comprehensive care coordination, but fully achieving care coordination across the vast health enterprise is still a long way ahead. While a recent American Hospital Association (AHA) survey showed that nearly all reported hospitals (96 percent) possessed certified EHR technology in 2015, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology reports that there is very little coordination of patient data across the healthcare ecosystem. Much of this disconnect begins with the inability to transfer data in a secure manner that will match, manage and protect patient identities across enterprises. \"As hospitals must now deal with hundreds of thousands of electronic patient records, spanning multiple systems and departments, the traditional technologies to managing patient information are no longer sufficient,\" says Karly Rowe, Vice President of New Product Development, Identity and Care Management Products for Experian Health. \"Leveraging sophisticated matching technology and outside data sources, can improve patient identification and prevent duplicate or overlapping records which result in inappropriate care, redundant tests, and medical errors – as well as make data accuracy higher for clinical, administrative, and quality improvement decision purposes.\" To solve the industry problem of matching, matching and protecting patient identities across the healthcare ecosystem, we must start by creating a universal patient identifier (UPI) to make patient data truly interoperable. For example, one of the biggest challenges in managing patient data begins when patients move, change names, or switch doctors and their EHR doesn’t follow them. They have to start over, trying to recall events and dates in their medical history with a new doctor, who is tasked with providing care without the detailed insight into the patient’s medical record. But if that same patient had a universal identifier that allowed healthcare providers to communicate with another healthcare provider about a patient, the new provider would know all the ins and outs of that patient’s history, leading to a more holistic approach to care and higher patient satisfaction. Simply put, a UPI can be thought of as a mechanism to link all patient information and associate it with the right individual based on patient data. This is similar to how credit bureaus link an individual’s credit history to the right individual to ensure accurate reporting. Using a similar model, patient data — and supporting patient demographic data — can be used for the common good to improve patient safety, increase quality of care and reduce mistaken identity risks. The benefits of a UPI extend across the entire healthcare system as well, as it improves the quality of patient identities, which can have duplicate, overlapping and incomplete records. Additionally, a UPI can help eliminate incorrect medical treatments; deliver current and accurate patient data; and prevent identity fraud, HIPAA breaches and incidental disclosures of protected health information (PHI). Ultimately, this will build patient trust through increased visibility and record accuracy. Knowing that preventable medical errors, many of which are the result of incorrect patient identification, are the third leading cause of death in the United States. The creation of a UPI will allow the healthcare industry to facilitate accurate information exchange to stop problems before they start. For example, if a patient shows up to fill a prescription and is mistaken for another patient with the same name and given the wrong prescription, there could be fatal interactions with other medications that patient is taking. The National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP) has already started using this technology to establish national patient safety identifiers. A national patient safety identifier, or UPI, is a vendor-neutral, cost-effective solution that will link patient data at scale efficiently and accurately to improve patient safety and care coordination. Identity management is a critical, underlying component to every interaction, and healthcare is no exception. To fully achieve the goal of comprehensive care coordination, creating a UPI to help match, manage and protect patient data is the first step in achieving the interoperability of patient data. Participate in National Health IT Week’s Virtual March and help catalyze actionable change within the U.S. health system through the effective use of health IT.
As the health industry faces extraordinary changes, how can leaders better drive efficiency and optimize resources? Recently President for Experian Health, Jennifer Schulz, sat down with The Business Debate to answer this pressing question. In short, the best way to get there is to turn to data-driven technology. In this interview, Jennifer touches on some of the main barriers to efficiency in health systems: Patient financial payments and identity management. Here are some excerpts from her interview. To watch the video and read Jennifer’s editorial, please click here. Patient financial payments and price transparency “The use of technology in healthcare is slim. When a consumer in a retail experience or a financial service experience uses their mobile device, or goes online, that experience doesn\'t translate into healthcare. Experian Health is very focused on improving the transparency of healthcare from a financial perspective. We\'ve launched things like patient estimators because there’s no other large purchase you make in your life that you don\'t know what you\'re about to buy. And healthcare, for the most part, this all happens after the transaction, and that type of transparency in healthcare can come with the use of technology.” Universal patient identification “Another issue is identity isn\'t the same when you go from system to system. Every hospital, every provider looks at you as an individual, and puts a number associated with you. That number is within their system only, and so you may go across systems, but there is no view of identity. One of the solutions we\'ve launched here at Experian Health is the universal identity manager, and we\'re offering that with no charge to our clients because we think identity is the one key to provide transparency across systems.” As we have done for other industries, Experian is at the forefront of bringing this type of consumerism to healthcare. Through our data assets and technology, we empower our clients to connect with consumers through a tailored approach that is personalized along the patient journey. To learn more, visit www.ExperianHealth.com.
Healthcare has always been driven by data, and today, providers have access to an unprecedented amount from a wide variety of sources. While this influx could be a blessing to the healthcare industry as a whole, it also poses a number of challenges, particularly when it comes to patient identity management. With a soaring volume of patient information coming in from numerous sources, identity errors become increasingly more likely, as well as the potential consequence of fatal mistakes. Keeping this in mind, the importance of effective identity management cannot be overstated. Every year, an estimated 195,000 people die due to medical mistakes. More than half of those deaths – 10 out of every 17 – are the result of identity management errors, such as duplicate records and mistaken patient identities. While current healthcare IT solutions attempt to tackle these discrepancies, they only succeed in identifying about 10 percent of all duplicate records. Consequently, patients often undergo repeated tests or receive incorrect treatment or medication that can result in adverse effects to their health. Also, there is limited coordination of patient data throughout the healthcare ecosystem. The main culprit of this is the lack of secure data transfers that compromise patient records and identity. This raises the question: How can healthcare organizations better manage the massive amounts of data related to each patient’s medical identity? Luckily, such issues can be improved with Experian Health’s Universal Identity Manager (UIM), which creates a single identity for individual patients across multiple disparate healthcare databases. Upgrade your identity management system The ability to share patient information across multiple healthcare organizations with different care management programs is at the core of optimizing overall patient care. Properly utilizing patient and population health data can dramatically improve an organization’s efficiency, raise its quality of care, and lower its readmissions rate. For patient data to be useful, however, providers require a robust infrastructure that allows for secure, precise, and accurate storage of patient data. The same framework should be able to assign patients unique identities across the entire network. In turn, a single, universal patient identity system allows for better analytical insights and more effective care personalization. This kind of management system also allows an organization to add relevant data to a patient’s medical profile faster and more accurately, creating an improved dynamic database that can develop personalized patient engagement and care plans. How Experian Health’s universal identity management software helps Administrative slip-ups in healthcare can have drastic consequences for a patient’s health and wellbeing. Eliminating these inaccuracies is the main goal of Experian Health’s UIM solution. Experian Health has the benefit of leveraging data assets available to us from being part of broader Experian. As a result, the identity management software generates and assigns a unique identifier to each patient that remains consistent across various healthcare systems, such as hospitals, therapeutic facilities, pharmacies, and healthcare payers. Drawing on decades of experience in identity management, Experian Health\'s multi-matching methodology approach eliminates duplicate and erroneous data through comprehensive search and alert processes. It provides a high degree of likeliness because it expands beyond the limitations of the conventional single-matching methodology that most health systems use today. Even records created on disparate healthcare systems can be automatically analyzed and assigned to the appropriate patient identity. In addition to eliminating discrepancies that could affect the quality of patient care, universal identity management also reduces medical and billing errors, ultimately minimizing an organization\'s risk of fraud. The solution also works in tandem with Experian Health’s suite of patient engagement and transparency tools, including its Patient Self-Service portal, to further optimize an organization’s ability to deliver personalized, high-quality care. Unique patient identifiers are critical for healthcare organizations to reduce the risks of inaccurate and duplicate records that lead to errors and low-quality care. Combined with Experian Health\'s suite of patient engagement and price transparency tools, its identity management software is a leap toward making efficient and reliable interoperability more possible across the healthcare ecosystem.
