Master Patient Index (MPI)
Master Patient Index (MPI) integrity is the foundation for Advanced Clinical Information Systems such as CPOE, EMR and EDIS. The creation of duplicate records is a direct threat to the Master Patient Index. Industry experts suggest that the average hospital has a 10% duplication rate, with merged entities facing rates as high as 40%. Duplicate medical records have been shown to compromise patient care, increase the likelihood of repeat testing, create legal and regulatory liabilities and result in direct material costs to healthcare organizations.
The first step to MPI integrity is the clean-up of existing duplicate records. Iatric Systems developed our MRI MergeMate product to assist HIM departments with the identification and electronic merging of patient records. MergeMate allows organizations to define their own duplicate selection criteria and electronically merge individual and/or batch records all within the Meditech environment.
At Iatric Systems, we believe in the old medical adage, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." This year, we are pleased to introduce our newest MPI integrity tool - MRI Guard. MRI Guard was designed to integrate with Meditech's Admissions module in an effort to prevent duplicates before they are created. MRI Guard uses additional duplicate checking algorithms as a backup to Meditech's standard Soundex search. The longer a duplicate record remains in your system, the more costly it becomes. Don't just fix duplicates ... prevent them!
We will be hosting two sessions at MUSE related to MPI Integrity - an educational session (number 347) entitled "Don't Get Dup'd - Understanding the Cause, Effect and Prevention of Duplicate Medical Records" on Wed at 2:00pm and a demonstration of MRI Guard / Mergemate at booth 300 on Thu at 9:30am.