Becker's Hospital Review

19 Executive Briefing Sponsored by: How Biometric Identification Enhances Patient Safety and the Hospital's Bottom Line H ospitals can't provide high-quality care if patient misidentification occurs, as the errors resulting from misidentification can have significant consequences for patient safety and the organizations' financial health. Patient misidentification is challenging for most hospitals. Patients are misidentified 7 to 10 percent of the time, based on a Rand Corp. analysis cited by The Wall Street Journal. This widespread problem of misidentification led The Joint Commission to declare the issue a top patient safety goal for 2017. According to a 2016 Ponemon Institute report which surveyed more than 500 healthcare executives, most identification mistakes occur during registration. Further, 64 percent of respondents said patient misidentification errors occur frequently or all the time. Misidentification can result in time-consuming and costly administrative setbacks as well as increased chances for medical errors. An ECRI report found that 9 percent of 7,600 wrong- patient events resulted in temporary or permanent patient harm or even death. And providers are aware of the correlation between misidentification and medical errors. In fact, about 86 percent of providers reported they have witnessed or were aware of medical errors caused by patient misidentification, according to the Ponemon study. Due to the intertwined economic and safety consequences of patient misidentification, hospitals are finding it in their best interest to leverage technology to protect their patients and themselves. One such solution involves biometrics, a technology that verifies an individual's identity based on unique biological traits, such as an iris scan. Economic impact of misidentification Incorrectly identifying patients not only presents safety issues, but also jeopardizes a hospital's bottom line. The Ponemon Institute report revealed that the average hospital loses $17.4 million per year in denied claims stemming from misidentification. Duplicate medical records serve as the likely culprit for claim denials. A duplicate record may not present the complete and accurate medical history, as it could lack vital patient information, such as a patient's blood type, allergies or past diagnoses. Physicians who make care decisions based on incomplete information may inadvertently order unnecessary tests, ineffective treatments, or incorrect medication and care, all generating excess costs for both the hospital and the patient. Along the same lines, overlaid medical records - which occur when two individuals' records are merged - don't properly present a patient's medical history. The American Health Information Management Association Foundation (AHIMA) found that an average EHR system contains 8 to 12 percent duplicate medical records each, costing up to $1,000 to correct , while it takes $5,000 to fix a medical record overlay. These costs accumulate during the "cleansing and unmerging" process, due to the excess administrative time required to sort through the medical databases. Identity fraud also negatively impacts proper patient identification. If patients present fraudulent identification or insurance cards when registering, they are at risk of adverse events because their records will include erroneous medical information. Medical identity theft presents a significant concern for providers across the country. Twenty-six percent of U.S. consumers have experienced medical identity theft, with 50 percent paying an average of $2,500 in out-of-pocket costs per event, according to a 2017 Accenture survey. Even more concerning is the Identity Theft Resource Center report that cited 179 data breaches in the healthcare industry in the first half of 2017. According to the 2016 Ponemon Institute survey, 61 percent of respondents think patients who suffer lost or stolen medical records are more likely to experience identity theft. Identifying a solution Manual identification processes are no longer sufficient. Few hospitals request Social Security numbers today due to liability concerns, and it is common for patients to have similar names or birth dates. Further, human error can lead to mistyped information. Imprivata, a healthcare IT security company, introduced Imprivata PatientSecure® as a comprehensive solution. Imprivata PatientSecure is a positive patient identification solution that creates a 1:1 match between patients and their medical records based on patients' biometric identification. The solution is simple enough to be used at any point across the care continuum.

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