Question

Can you please help me explain the use of Indexes and Registries in healthcare today and discuss their utilization and importance in US healthcare.

Answer 1

There are three forms of indexes namely

• Master patient index having a complete data about the patient
• Disease index is an useful tool to do cross reference in quality analysis, improvement, enables to identify the records of the patient in relation to a procedure,treatment ,study and research purposes, etc.,
• Physician index consisted of a complete details about the physician involved in the care,treatment or in a procedure

Registries

• Birth and death registries carrying the details of a new child birth and death of an individual respectively
• Admission and Discharge registries which contains the entire data about a patient from admission till discharge
• Cancer registries giving a thorough information from the diagnosis to treatment to coding of the patient
• Trauma registry are generally applicable for a patient who is severely injured in an accident and the cases which are prone for medicolegal issues

In US healthcare though everything has been made digitalized stool these types of index and registries are still in practice for record maintenance, educative purposes, research purposes and acts as a legal document in any issues later.