Verato on Tuesday released its Universal MPI, a master patient index hosted as a cloud service that hospitals can subscribe to instead of managing their own patient matching information and processes.

The company said the Verato Universal MPI, which is pre-populated with patient data, can serve as a hub of sorts that healthcare providers essentially plug into through standard APIs to validate and resolve patient identities, exchange medical records, reconcile patients across various EHRs and reduce duplications.

[Also: ONC launches $75,000 patient matching algorithm challenge]

Former U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra said in a statement that patient matching is among the most vexing interoperability issues. And without a federal policy change that would allow national patient identifiers, the healthcare industry is struggling with consistency and accuracy of patient records.

“Even as EHRs begin to support patient access to their health information, most providers are reluctant to deploy the technology without greater confidence in the patient and record matching,” said Chopra, who is now President of NavHealth.

Verato said the Universal MPI is pre-populated with demographic data that spans the U.S. population and features a referential matching technology to link identities in new ways.

And every healthcare provider that plugs into it will also be able to resolve patients with other hospitals that participate in the Universal MPI.

Verato CEO Mark LaRow claimed that the current generation of MPI technology already ran up against its limits when it comes to probabilistic matching algorithms and the healthcare industry needs an entirely new approach.

“Our idea was to solve the patient identity problem by harnessing big-data and applying data science expertise at a level that would be inconceivable for any individual enterprise,” LaRow said. “And then offer our solution to everyone.”

Twitter: SullyHIT
Email the writer: tom.sullivan@himssmedia.com

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