Resolving Disconnected Patient Records to Support Patient Care and Population Health

Population health relies on tracking patients through a continuum of care with data from disparate sources. An assumption is made that all records of a patient from all the sources are connected. As was realized during the process of operationalizing algorithms for population health, not all patient records are connected. Disconnected records negatively impact results: from individual patient care management through population health’s predictive analytics. An enterprise master patient index (EMPI) system can be employed to connect a patient’s records across disparate systems, but it requires comprehensive tuning to maximize the number of connected records. This presentation describes how one large healthcare integrated delivery network tuned their EMPI system to maximize the number of connected patient records across all sources.