HFMA Educational Report: The Value Of Precise Patient Identification

Despite the best intentions, healthcare organizations can struggle with consistently and reliably collecting precise patient information and matching individuals to their medical records. The consequences of patient misidentification and mismatching can be severe, ranging from medical errors to adverse effects on the bottom line. Patient misidentification also makes it difficult for organizations to track their costs and determine the total cost of care in risk-based arrangements.

This HFMA Education Report discusses specific risks of misidentifying patients and examines various improvement strategies, including:

• Standardizing processes, such as combining the scheduling, registration, and patient identification processes
• Leveraging software tools and biometric solutions for positive patient identification
• Fostering the collaboration between the patient access and data integrity teams, to improve patient identification across the organization

Read this whitepaper to better meet the patient identification challenges in your organization.