The migration of personal health information online, accelerated by the COVID pandemic, has empowered patients nationwide to gain unprecedented, direct access to their digital medical information and records.
With this migration, healthcare providers have adopted new systems to manage patient continuity of care and communication with medical professionals, which have undoubtedly helped reduce medical errors and costs, and contributed to improved patient outcomes. Interoperability among these various systems and across healthcare institutions is crucial, but health systems face myriad challenges accurately linking patients to their digital health records.
In fact, the U.S. Government Accountability Office recently reported that 45% of large hospitals have difficulty accurately identifying patients using electronic health information. Another report from Pew Charitable Trusts estimates that 1 out of every 5 patients may not be matched to their records when seeking care at a location they’ve already visited, and that patient match rates can drop as low as 50% when a patient seeks care between organizations. Meanwhile, ensuring patients have access to their electronic medical information is imperative to keeping patients engaged and empowered in their own care.
The misidentification of patients not only threatens patient safety and disrupts efforts to coordinate care, but is also costly – potentially leading to repeat tests, and unnecessary administrative burden for healthcare organizations.
In the U.S., healthcare organizations spend roughly $1 trillion annually on administrative costs – manually checking IDs, taking patient photos, reconciling demographics and more. That’s more than a quarter of all healthcare dollars spent in total. These duplicative tasks cost health systems money and patients time, and require medical professionals to spend less time with their patients. We believe healthcare can do better.
The bottom line is: health organizations must adopt more secure and efficient technologies that accurately identify patients, link them to their electronic health information, and grant patients, caregivers, and authorized employees access to those records with minimal friction, while keeping unauthorized individuals out. Protecting our health systems and patient data while accelerating authorized access has never been more important.
That’s why University of Miami Health System (UHealth) and CLEAR, the secure identity company known for identity verification at 56 airports nationwide, have come together to address the existing friction at the digital front door.
With CLEAR’s partnership, UHealth is empowering UHealth employees and soon patients, with the option to instantly validate their identity to establish that they are authorized to access a particular set of health records. CLEAR’s technology works by matching an individual’s official I.D. document (like a driver’s license) to a selfie, ensuring liveness and establishing that the individual is who they claim to be. It also delivers a friction-free experience for patients and providers that saves everyone time and improves operational efficiencies.
Within just the first several months of implementation, the majority (as many as 64%) of UHealth employees and contractors that have called the Help Desk have adopted CLEAR’s verification technology and have cut the length of their calls down by an average of 35 seconds per call. This reduction in call time has subsequently reduced the average call hold time by an average of 26%.
These early results are promising. By leveraging CLEAR, UHealth employees now enjoy a more streamlined experience that reduces frustration, empowers providers to devote more time to their patients’ care, and mitigates administrative burdens.
CLEAR offers an easy to use, more secure method for UHealth’s patients and workforce to seamlessly and securely engage across the UHealth continuum. We hope our partnership is a model for healthcare organizations nationwide.
James Lindgren is the Executive Director of Health System Optimization at the University of Miami.
David Bardan is the GM, Head of Healthcare at CLEAR. CLEAR is the secure identity platform that connects you to all the things that make you, you – making everyday experiences easier, more secure, and friction-free. To learn more about CLEAR’s secure identity technology and how it can help your healthcare institution, visit clearme.com/healthcare.