Congress currently prohibits HHS from using funds to assign patients unique health identifiers. However, the signing organizations — including the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society — are asking to clarify the language to enable ONC and CMS to support private-sector patient-matching initiatives.
The 25 organizations say patient matching will improve healthcare safety and quality, by ensuring patients are connected to their health information across the care continuum.
“The absence of a consistent approach to accurately identifying patients has resulted in significant costs to hospitals, health systems, physician practices and long-term post-acute care facilities, as well as hindered efforts to facilitate health information exchange,” according to the letter.
Click here to view the letter.
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