Question

1. You have just been hired as the HIM director at a 465-bed hospital. In preparation for participation in a regional HIE, your predecessor had just completed data collection on duplicate entries in the MPI. She found a 1 percent duplication rate on 21,000 registrations last month. She found that rate acceptable. You interpret the findings differently. Explain your interpretation and assess what the next steps should be.
2. The hospital listed above services a large population of immigrants. As a result, you discover that the registration staff often searches for patients in the ADT system by date of birth rather than name, as a language barrier is evident. You observed this process and realized that most of the duplicates are arising from this process as the dates of birth are not always entered correctly. Decide what other criteria the staff should search on if they do not search by name. Create a priority list of the criteria.

I only need help with question #2 and please do not copy and paste someone else's answer. Thank you!

Answer 1

The staff can search through the following criteria to minimize the duplication of data

• Patient ID number - It is one of the safest methods in searching for patient data in the ADT system. The patient ID number will be unique for every patient and do not have a repetition ID number which avoids duplication.
• Identify with patient demographic data such as age, sex, address, nationality, date of birth.
• Identity through patient grid such as admission time, location, specialty, room number, etc.
• Identify through unique numbers of SSN or NHS number.
• Master patient Index, Patient Identifier cross-referencing system avoids the duplication of patient data.

These criteria will avoid the dumps of data in the patient registration system and duplication of databases. This type of process will improve the continuity of care and patient safety.