Just Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in patient data integrity solutions for the health information management (HIM), health informatics and health information technology (HIT) markets, today unveiled IDMaster, an innovative software solution designed to optimize workflow when reviewing and validating potential duplicate patient records.

The announcement was made at the 82nd AHIMA Convention and Exhibit, taking place Sept. 25-30, 2010 in Orlando, Fla., where Just Associates is featuring IDMaster in Booth #1737.

IDMaster provides hospitals, health systems and other provider organizations, as well as regional health information organizations (RHIOs) and health information exchanges (HIEs), with an efficient and affordable means of reviewing and resolving duplicate patient records and preventing the occurrence of new data integrity issues. It reduces the time and resources required to reconcile potential duplicate pairs and overlap and overlay records. It also documents the validity of decisions made regarding duplicates, tracks productivity and generates comprehensive, user-friendly reports that provide a complete view of efforts and key insights into problem origination points.

"As more provider organizations migrate to electronic health record systems to take advantage of incentive funds available under the HITECH Act, many are realizing just how serious a problem duplicate patient records have become. Not only are they a significant cost drain, but the data integrity issues duplicate records cause have far-reaching implications, impacting patient safety, care and quality, and creating roadblocks to achieving meaningful use of HIT," said Beth Just, MBA, RHIA, FAHIMA, CEO and President of Just Associates. "IDMaster delivers the features and functionality that drive more efficient duplicate reconciliation, resulting in more accurate patient records, cleaner data and a clear path toward meaningful use."

IDMaster facilitates the review of up to eight possible duplicates in a single view and heightens user control over the merge process while lessening the time burden. It supports human review and quality assurance before records are merged and produces an export file of confirmed duplicates, non-duplicates and those records requiring additional research. The solution also supports merging records in downstream systems, reducing manual steps and associated costs.

Exempla Healthcare implemented IDMaster following an extensive MPI clean-up and transition to a new system-wide clinical information system. The Denver-based three-hospital system now relies on the software to maintain clean, high-quality patient records. 

"We recognized quickly that, without the proper tools to identify problem areas, the issue would continue to compound," said Grant Landsbach, Exempla's data integrity EMPI manager. "IDMaster was precisely the tool we needed. The software was easy to install, did not take up much server space and produced positive results almost immediately."

Built with flexibility in mind, IDMaster is customizable to match the organization's unique review processes, supporting the steps involved in identifying and validating possible duplicates and multiples. It enables the insertion of check points for quality assurance, tracks and documents each step in the workflow and features productivity tracking by individual and an audit log that records errors and corrections to drive improved performance.

IDMaster's automated workflow technology lets provider organizations:

• Reduce the time, effort and resources associated with duplicate review and reconciliation
• Create a repeatable process tailored to individual team strengths
• Evaluate validity decisions and monitor performance at the employee or team level
• Access detailed reports based upon date, validity decision, work done by specific employees and record status

IDMaster requires little or no IT support. Its web-based deployment allows for quick implementation and features import functionality that supports most hospital information systems and/or third-party data analysis capability.

Since deploying IDMaster, Exempla has experienced a significant reduction in the resources required to manage the duplicate reconciliation process.

"You can't play patient roulette and patient safety cannot be over-emphasized," said Landsbach. "IDMaster has helped us improve the quality of information within our system and streamline our workflows, allowing our team to more efficiently identify and eliminate duplicates and freeing valuable resources to focus more closely on other more complex and core issues. Going forward, IDMaster will help our team continue to make strides in duplicate record management. I would definitely recommend it for most healthcare environments these days."