Studies in Success: Epic with IDOptimize®
Large Teaching Hospital Enhances Patient Matching Accuracy with Just Associates' IDOptimize®
Challenge:
Maintaining a clean MPI was hampered by technical limitations that prevented ongoing electronic merging of duplicates between its clinical systems. Equally problematic were Epic Identity's out-of-the-box algorithms resulting in sub-optimal identification of duplicate patient records:
- A high number of false alarms required manual evaluation
- A significant number of missed false-negatives resulted in a greater number of undetected duplicate records in the MPI
Solutions:
IDOptimize® from Just Associates, a unique service that evaluates and optimizes a facility's Epic Identity Duplicate Configuration (IDC) settings to improve the accuracy of duplicate identification for greater data integrity, resulting in a higher level of patient care and safety. IDOptimize leverages JA's deep knowledge of industry systems to:
- Enhance patient matching performance through stronger algorithms
- Reduce false alarms
- Enhance operational output
Methodology:
- A two-phase analysis was performed to determine how IDOptimize impacted duplicate patient identification. In Phase 1, a "False Alarm" pairs analysis was performed on 29,207 possible duplicate pairs identified using Epic Identity's out-of-the-box IDC settings. In Phase 2, a "False Negative" pairs analysis was performed on 28,669 possible duplicate pairs identified using JA's IDC settings.
- Duplicate pairs were analyzed to determine appropriate validity decisions based on JA's internal guidelines to indicate the likelihood that each was actually the same person
- JA inserted its own IDC settings alongside the Epic out-of-the-box weights for each property and total match weights were compared
- Further analysis was performed to determine how IDOptimize settings impacted duplicate patient identification
Results:
When compared to Epic Identity's out-of-the-box settings, JA's IDOptimize configurations:
- Identified 40% more real duplicates
- Resulted in 38% fewer false alarms
- Missed less than 1% of the pairs identified by Epic
This dramatic improvement in accurate duplicate identification translates to enhanced overall EMPI data integrity and improved patient care and safety as many additional duplicate patient records can be identified, resolved and combined under one MRN.
